In my last post back in 2014, I was talking about Advent and looking forward to Christmas with the Tribe. Well, life once again, took over and only now do I find that I have a spare five minutes to put ‘pen to paper’ and the all that remains of Christmas are piles of greenery and missletoe outside and the telltale trail of pine needles as the tree was hastily dragged out of the house late on Tuesday evening to be put onto the ever-growing bonfire in the field.
December whizzed by and the last couple of weeks of the month were full of carol concerts, Christmas parties, a wonderful nativity (yes, this has once again returned to our Christmas schedule!), church services, walks on deliciously cold, crisp, blue skied days, walks on gloomy, wet, sludgy days, a happy few days spent with grandparents, fireworks in the garden, ice skating – all the stuff of Christmas.
Plus, the week that school ended, I had the entire Tribe off sick with the cold virus that everyone seems to have been laid low with at some point – not great for planning, but that’s just life.
We nearly got stuck at the Beach Cafe at Mudeford, but were ‘rescued’ by the
very kind ferryman who returned from Christc
hurch to pick us up in the
dark, after being called by the manager of the cafe. Its was freezing cold and blowing a gale, but all rather fun – not quite like the balmy day that we’d had on 31st October, the last time we were here! In London we caught up with Gerald Durrell’s bestest friend from Dubai and her family – all too short, but so, so sweet. We look forward to seeing more of you in the summer!
As everyone returned to work, school and nursery this wee
k, I found a pile of Christmas cards written but not yet delivered – I can only apologise, but having spoken to another mother at nursery this
week, I know that I’m not alone in this. There are so many
friends and family who we didn’t manage to see over this festive season (in fact during all of 2014), but we hope that we will see more of everyone in 2015. Wishing our family and friends in the UK, New Zealand, Australia, the Middle East, Singapore, Israel, the US and everyone else, a very happy, healthy and peaceful 2015 and thank you for your continued encouragement and support in this on-going project. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please do!