Hello. Hello. I'm back. Carol you seem to be the only person to notice our absence! I'm soo sorry. How unusual that you have had daily access to a pooter. Can yours be working now?! A BIG BIG Happy Birthday to you. Have a fabulous day won't you. We will have a drink or 10 for you.
I have so much to write that I won't do it all in one hit. Firstly Ryan, big apologies darling. I did try to put the photo on after we spoke but had problems with connecting to the internet after attaching some bits to the computer that Eric bought me for Xmas. I did take the photo and it should be on there now.
I learnt two things over Xmas. One is that 3 puddings eaten one after the other leaves you full for more hours than is comfortable. Similar effect to obsence amounts of potatoes Helen though I didn't have them all in my mouth at the same time!! Even Bridget turned down alcohol on far too many askings after supper as she had no room for any! The second thing is how boring some people, or rather one person can be. No I don’t mean Eric! More on that later.
Xmas day was blissful. We went to Midnight Mass. Harri asked last year and I said No as I thought she was too young but agreed this year it would be reasonable. We all went and met Robyn and Sarah there. Richard seemed to think that having to get up at 4.30am meant he had a good excuse not to go. Wuss I say. We got home about 1.30am and got to bed by 2.30am and were woken at 6.20am!!!! The earliest we have be roused on Xmas Day for a long time. Anyway, we actually managed to wake enough to take an interest in the girls and our stocking contents about half an hour later then I think we must have dozed again for awhile. When we finally got up I went with Eric to feed pigs. We decided to put the little piggies in with their parents (they had been in adjoining pens but the piglets were outgrowing their space). So I waded through the mud that seriously threatened to run over the top of my gummies (NZ ones are only mid-calf length) to get to the gate between the pens. I looked at Eric and said this was not how I anticipated spending Xmas morning!!!! We came up and I made the waffles that the girls had requested for breakfast. I made the batter the previous day and it looked very thick by now. I don’t know what went wrong but they did. I made a big pile and we managed to salvage some that were OK. These were eaten with fresh fruit (blueberries, strawberries and kiwifruit) and cream. I then remembered that I had not made the required Xmas Day pavlova so quickly threw one together. I was a bit reluctant as I had, in the previous 24 hours semi-ruined a stollen (put in the oven set to turn off automatically while we went to Mass!) and a pantone (pinger went, Eric turned it off and did nothing although he assures me he told me. I found the pantone, still cooking about 15 minutes later!), as well as the waffles. Anyway it came out fine. Our Xmas Day plan was to go for a walk in the morning and open pressies in the afternoon however every time we went to go the heavens opened for another downpour so we abandoned that idea and opened pressies instead. I was telling Tricia (Eric’s sister) yesterday that we started to unwrap at about 10.30-11’ish and Alice announced '12.25 actually!'. Was someone clock watching I wonder? We unwrapped for a while then had a break. At this point I suggested Alice and Harri have a snooze. I did, for an hour, Eric did for 15 mins and Alice went to bed for several hours! Harriette read. These photo’s were taken about 5pm shortly after I woke up.
Note the lolly sticking out of her mouth!!
We then, after 3 attempts to wake Alice, sat down to a meal at about 6pm (-ish, roundabout, I think). By about 8.30pm we resumed unwrapping the last of the presents. We got a Hector dolphin!!! Bridget spoilt us rotten, In fact I was embarrassed by her generosity. And I told her how naughty she was! Not only did she adopt a dolphin in our name but she also gave Eric and I movie tickets AND offered to babysit so we could go. How awsome is that? Now it appears that Bridget and Carol feel we cannot be trusted to name him/her (what’s wrong with Dusty for a cat?!?!?) Sooo...... here is your chance to enter the ‘name a Hector Dolphin competition’ The prize is knowing you won. Entries to be posted by clicking Comments below and then clicking OK at the bottom (after filling in the bits in between!). Good luck.
Other pressies I loved were ‘Creative Scarecrows’, a fabulous how to make them book from Eric, and Relax and Escape a Classic FM 4 CD set from Mom and Daddy. Thank You. I can now also tell you that the cryptic messages to Carol about there being 4 refers to England rugby shirts. I asked her to get me 3 for E, H and A for Xmas. Well she bought me one as well and it ended up that she gave them to the girls also. Thank you Carol. Tricia, bless her also managed to get organised and send pressies back with Eric for all of us. I should have got better organised and sent more over with Eric but it just didn’t happen. I was pretty stressed at that point in my life though so I’m not going to be too hard on myself. Eric also bought me a set of decent speakiers for the computer (now we have broadband we can listen to The Archer's properly) and a double USB port for above speakers. Problem is though nothing works when 2 USB's are plugged in so we are hoping the upgraded desktop will accomodate them when Eric reloads Windows today.
Alice got this for Christmas!!!!
Thanks Ava-Lee, it gave us all a laugh!!
Boxing day was to be our busy socialising day. Juliet, Kev, Emma and Hannah, Juliets parents Ann and Mike and Emma's friend from the UK, and her Mom were here for 2 days. We organised sleeping arrangements, Harri and Alice cleared up their respective rooms (if you are regular blog readers you will know how big a feat that is) and the cottage bed was made up. When they arrived in the afternoon I detected a bit of an atmosphere and questioned Juliet. Apparently they had left an answaphone message (I keep telling her to email rather than do this we pick up answaphone messages about once every 2 weeks!!) saying they would not be staying!!!! This other person had said that she did not want to come as she did not feel she could stay over and her daughter may feel left out!!!! We at Cedar Lodge go out of our way to make people feel uncomfortable and left out as you well know!! Well obviously they could not leave these guests behind so they had to agree not to stay over. Mike therefore agreed to not drink (this is a man who loves his beer) and drove them all back in the evening. I cannot tell you how incredulous I was of the whole thing. How can you go and stay will someone and be responsible for for altering the Xmas plans of 3 families? Juliet and Kev are going through such a rough time at the moment this was going to be a serious relax, chill out day for us all. I hope she felt very guilty about the whole thing. Am I being unreasonable? Not only this but when they arrived our 4 girls dived into the bedroom to play hairdressing (straighteners and styling sets being Xmas pressies) and came out to find this child when she didn't follow them in. She would not go and as a result Emma and Hannah had to stay out on the deck with her while she did craft things. Finally she did go in and they had a great time, appearing at half hourly intervals with different styles. Throughout the afternoon the Mom only spoke when spoken to and no one witnessed a smile (although she is on 2 photo's). After eating (more about the meal later) the girls piped up 'Can we go and swim?'. On 'Yes' they cheered and ran out. This woman then said to her child 'You can't go in for 30 mins' Poor child looked crest fallen! I think Bridget was on the verge of saying to her don't be mean or ridiculous or something. I don't think any of us could trust ourselves to speak. As a compromise she was able to put on her togs and sit on the edge. Alice crept in a while later and asked if she could please join in now and was told Yes. I mean, yes, you shouldn't swim after eating. But these girls spent so much time giggling they hardly ate anything and they were going to lark around in a pool ouside the kitchen window, not swim kms in the sea on their own. I tried not to let the woman spoil our day but it was hard and threated to deteriorate badly when Juliet said after a few drinks, and very loudly in the next room 'If ever I get that boring please shoot me'!!! Anyway you get the picture. When they left at 9.30pm I made a point of saying to them each in turn 'I'm sooo sorry you have to leave'
I have just spoken to Robyn. Sarah was sick over Xmas and had to go the doctors on Boxing Day. They spent Xmas Day rushing around and running late all day and their relaxing Boxing day did not really happen after 3 hours at the doctors. And I have just listened to the news for the first time since the 24th and heard of the terrible earthquake and tsunamis in Asia. Puts things in perspective doesn't it. I hope none of you have friends or family in the affected areas.
I must go and do something. Eric said the sun is shining so I may dive out on to the pool deck for a while. Will fill in all the gaps later. Love to you all. We still miss our friends and families and think of you especially fondly at this time of year.
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