Tag: celebrations & events

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dear diary :: the close of the year

I thought I knew what I was doing today but then life happened. DH received a phone call from the garage about our car – they are having difficulty getting a part and it will be Friday before they can do anything. He asked if they had a courtesy car to tide us over, as my little car is away on holiday in Norwich with my daughters until Thursday………. but they didn’t. Then 30 minutes later they rang back and said they had managed to rearrange things and if we could get down to the garage in town straight away they could give us one.

So my original plans for today changed in a few seconds and we had to scramble around to get our things together and walk down to the village for the bus. It was one of those local independant bus companies that set up using the old cast off buses that are sold on from the main companies – Metro and First buses in our region. The bus called Tiger buses was bright orange and so clapped out I did wonder if it was actually road worthy as we rumbled and rattled our way into town. It was the ride from hell; I swear it had square wheels. I just managed not to be sick down the women sat in front of me ( a morbid fear of mine when I am on a bus).

Opposite us was a young family, mum dad, baby in a pram and young teenage daughter. It hit home how lucky we are to have a car and how difficult and expensive it must be when you have to use public transport. The journey cost £2.70 each into town – it is 7 miles so too far to walk. The young daughter must have been going to stay with a relative or friend overnight as I overheard the mum saying that she was to pick her up at 8pm tomorrow evening. Because there are no buses running on New Year’s day she would have to organise a taxi to go and collect her -I wonder how much that will cost her on double time.

We collected the rather striking red and white Citroen C3 (doesn’t quite fit with DH’s image – he is hardly a boy racer!) and drove round to Sainsbury’s with some returns and to get a bit more fresh food and bread. Then round to TK Max to exchange a fridge container that we bought yesterday, and was later found to be broken, for another one. I confess it is plastic but not single use and should last me for years even if we change the fridge. I already have one or two in the fridge and they are so useful to keep like things together and pull out so that you can see everything at once and saves me having to contort myself whilst trying to rummage to the back of the fridge past many jars and packets.

I aslo bought a few reduced Christmas cards ready for next year. They are handy to have in case I don’t get to make my own or don’t make enough of my own next Christmas. They are packed away now already for next year.

Before Christmas I made a selection of ‘Thank you’ notelets intended as a gift for a friend who uses a lot of them; but then decided they were not really good enough to give as a gift but are OK for me to use. So that is what I am about to do now – write my thank you cards so that I can give them out when we see our friends tonight for our new year gathering.

In fact I need to get a move on so I have time to have a shower and do something with my hair. It is not a dress up evening just smart casual – it is lovely to be able to end the year amongst good friends if you cannot be with your family. My mum is with my sister and BIL down in Torquay, my daughters, partners and grandchildren somewhere on the coast in Norfolk and my brother does not do new year – so we are so lucky to bring in the new year and share a meal and a festive tipple with some of our oldest friends and that they live close enough for us to walk round there and leave the C3 at home.

I hope whatever you are doing this evening you have some pleasant memories of the passing year and I wish you health and happiness for the coming year.

Thank you everyone who reads my blog and for those who frequently comment and those who drop me a line only once in a while. It is lovely to hear from you all with your good wishes and good advice. I send greetings and hugs to you all. x

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2020

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creating a simpler Christmas * Christmas eve and Christmas day

On Christmas Eve at 6.30pm we attended the Carols by Candlelight service at Baldersby St James; the church looked absolutely beautiful with hundreds of tiny tea lights flickering in the darkness.

Once back at home in my daughter’s new house we enjoyed a simple evening meal of baked potatoes and salads then gathered around the fireplace for the children to open their Christmas Eve boxes containing new pyjamas, a bedtime book and a small game each. It was time to hang out the stockings and quieten down ready for bedtime.

On Christmas Day we all travelled a few miles up the road to my sister’s house to gather there with all the rest of the family for a mammoth lunch of turkey or nut roast, five different vegetables plus the roasties and every kind of sauce imaginable! The three tables pushed together stretched to a good 15 feet long to accommodate us all this year as there were 13 of us in total.

Afterwards we opened our Not so Secret Santa presents and many others, all beautifully wrapped with homemade tags. My sister had made up a little stocking for each of us containing an orange, some chocolates and a couple of inexpensive gifts appropriate to the recipient. My stocking had a tub of Green and Blacks hot chocolate powder and some tiny baking cases for making sweets. DH got some fancy cheese in the shape of a snowman.

By the end of the day we were all tired out but everyone had a great time, especially my lovely mum.

So that is another Christmas gone by – doesn’t it take ages to get there and then is over so quickly.

I hope all my readers wherever you were for your Christmas and whatever you were doing had a good one. xxx

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creating a simpler Christmas * days 1 and 2

This year I wil be creating a much simpler Christmas for those readers who are following along.

There will be simpler decorations, simpler food and a few simple activities and crafts.

As you will notice I missed starting yesterday but I am not fretting about that (much) and I am beginning today with a clean sheet of paper and time to gather my thoughts. It is exceptionally cold outdoors today and the areas of my garden that were tinged with frost earlier have surprisingly now thawed. Inside I can sit near the fire warm and snug and make a few plans – not the daily planned activities of last year; rather my run up to Christmas this year will just evolve like a mystery journey, even to me, over the next few days.

The whole point this year is to relax and enjoy the season.

Presently I am in recovery mode. We had another hectic weekend. Of course it wasn’t intended as hectic. Things just happen – well at least to me.

We drove up to North Yorkshire again on Saturday morning, making a flask of soup before we went; homemade tomato and a round of sandwiches. It was a pleasant, if not busy drive, but no hold ups. We pulled off the road at Boroughbridge and parked by the wier over the bridge whilst we ate.

After calling in at my daughter’s new house with our overnight bags we went up the A19 to Yarm to collect my mum. We had planned to have a toastie and hot chocolate for teatime in Costa at Northallerton and look around a few shops with mum until it was time to go to the talent show in my sister’s village nearby.

Our first unexpected problem was that Costa on the high street had a completely empty fridge – no food whatsoever. Not to worry I said they have another branch in Tesco. We returned to the car parked a few yards away just in time to see a lady reversing out of her parking spot and into the rear end of our car, but not in time to stop her before she drove away – either oblivious to what she had done or with the intention of ignoring it and DH who was running after her. She was too quick in her get away for us to get her number as it was quite dark and her plate very dirty. There is scraping on the rear end beyond the back door but luckily no dent.

A bit upset by this incident we managed to shrug it off so it didn’t spoil the day and drove round to the Costa at Tesco and yes glory be….there was food….but the coffee machine was out of order so no coffee or hot chocolate – we had to make do with tea.

After getting warm and fed we then drove to my sister’s village and settled ourselves down at one of the reserved tables in the village hall where my mum had a good view. The show was amateur but brilliant and my sister and her husband did a dance routine fom Laurel and Hardy and a spoof Red Barrows performance amongst a few other things. The whole village is great at coming together to put on these kind of events and even we are starting to feel like part of their community.

During the interval they served us with delicious hot pie and peas (we had a green ticket for the vegetarian option – cheese and onion pasties) and there was wine or soft drinks. I won a raffle prize that I passed onto my sister as it was some kind of cocktail maker and would be lost on me as I rarely drink.

All sounds fun so far but then during the second half the trouble started – two men came on and played Country and Western music and some of the audience got up and started line dancing – then another man joined in and they played ballards. We were all enjoying them but mum not so much and got fidgety, kept checking her watch every few seconds like she does when she is anxious and then moaning in a loud voice. She dislikes guitar music…….apparently (in all my life I never knew that) she didn’t know the songs (Achy Breaky Heart, Moondance and similar) and to put it plainly just wanted to go at this point as she felt they had played far too long by this time and was making quite a scene about it.

They were very good and we were all enjoying ourselves save my mother and I felt so bad having to cause a commotion trying to get her into her coat and walk out during their performance. It turns out they were only another song away from the end but mum being mum could not sit and be polite – age has turned her into a very demanding and self-centred old lady at times. It was one of those embarrassing moments when you wish the earth would swallow you up.

In the car she said she hoped she hadn’t stopped us from enjoying the evening but really she couldn’t have listened to that any longer!!! After taking my mum home we went back to stay with my daughter and on the Sunday we took her and the two girls down to Ikea in Leeds to look for a wardrobe for her new house. You can imagine the scenes at Ikea – an overload of people and queues that resembled a rugby scrum – but we managed to choose something that she will order online this week and have delivered. We are giving her some money towards them for her birthday and Christmas….and maybe next birthday and Christmas, depending on how much they turn out to be!

On the way home the fun started again -only 10 miles from my daughter’s house we pulled off the A1M at the Boroughbridge junction to fill up with petrol at Morrisons but just at this point something was obviously not right with the car. We initially though we had a flat tyre as the car was beginning to bump along quite badly and we were forced to stop on the roundabout bridge over the motorway. I got out of the car to look and realised the back end of the car was almost sitting on the ground.

We called our breakdown service and because we had the baby and Little L with us we did get priority but we still had to wait an hour. They would recover the car either to our daughter’s house up the road or back to ours. A minor problem was that all our bags and my medication was at my daughter’s and we needed to collect that first. Would the recovery vehicle please take my daughter and children home first and then take us home. No they could not. They could organise a taxi to take us to our daughter’s house and the recovery vehicle to take DH home with the car. It could not be recovered to a garage because it was Sunday and they are all closed.

There was no other option forthcoming – so we had to take the taxi on offer which would leave me stuck up in North Yorkshire and DH was taken first to Morley in Leeds then transferred onto a second recovery vehicle that took him home. Once at my daughter’s house I had to ask my son-in-law who lives near us in Huddersfield to drive up to collect me and our bags and bring me home. What a farce.

We now have an undriveable car on our drive and DH is trying to get someone to come and recover it to take it to a Citroen specialist to be fixed. It is the hydraulic suspension that has gone – it sounds like an expensive problem to me and will be more so if we have a bill for the second recovery to a garage.

So not only is the car being recovered but we are too! You will forgive me if I am not able to think about Christmas very much today but I am grateful that we are home safe and sound and warm. I might even speak to my mum later and be pleasant now I have had time to cool off from that little ordeal.

Keep safe and warm x

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dear dairy :: more celebrations

Hello everyone, I thought I would be back sooner than this but I have had no time to even switch on the computer in the last week or so. I moved from the 1st birthday event to preparing for the christening, the Crisis Christmas coffee morning at my local church, and my daughter’s move to her new house. Phew!

After spending two years in the middle of nowhere, other than a few isolated farms in the distance, my daughter moved to a nearby tiny village with people and neighbours around her. We will all miss these stunning views she had from her house across the valley and over the resevoir but it really is far more covenient where she is now and for the first time little L will have playmates around. These might be my last pictures of Leighton resevoir – the reflection of the bridge in the water was just superb.

So the weekend before last saw me scrubbing out her new rental property ready for the move last Thursday and for most of that time I had my head in the oven – never have I seen one that was so bad on the inside – even a bottle full of cleaner could not shift the welded on grease and grime on the roof of the oven. After all that cleaning the oven does not appear to work and there is a missing rubber seal round the top oven door. So the appliance man has been called for by the landlord, but I have said to push for a new oven as I would condemn that one as not fit for purpose.

With our part in the move completed I turned my attention to creating something to sell at the Crisis coffee morning which took place last Saturday morning…the day before the christening. Time was quite tight with so much to do so it had to be something quick and easy and that I could make within an hour.

Remember the free pots I got from the lady in the village where our cottage is? I used six of these and a bag of 18 mixed tulip bulbs from Sainsbury’s for £3 to fill them. I stuffed each pot with a little crumpled newspaper and made up a cellophane bag (those that birthday cards are wrapped in) containing three bulbs – added a hand stamped label and nestled the pack of bulbs on the top……tied a piece of raffia around and …voila.

Most of last week was spent baking for the christening on Sunday. I made batches of fruit scones and cheese scones and three different quiches. Most of the other food was bought from M&S or local farm shops.

All was going well until we had a phone call from the vicar to say that the church boiler had broken down…is irreparable and warned us the church would be very cold during the christening and we might want to warn people to wrap up well.

It could only happen to us!!

And this was no understatement – it was freezing even though we were huddled together wearing thick coats, goves and scarfs (and in some cases with blankets over our knees and a hot water bottle for my poor mum). You could visibly see the congregation’s breath in the air as anyone spoke, and never have I seen steam coming off the water in the baptism font! A kettle of hot water had been added to warm it up a bit before ladelling over the baby’s head…..but little Freddie was so good and hardly flinched.

We had him wrapped up cosily in a warm shawl – here are the proud parents and Little L holding the baptism candle for her cousin.

The church ladies had baked our little party a few buns and made us a welcome cup of tea after the service which was such a nice guesture and helped to stave off the cold for a while. Once we were all in the heated village hall for the christening buffet we all began to thaw out a bit.

I was too busy on the day organising and laying out the food for our guests to take any photos of the hall with all the tables laid out – shame as it did look lovely – but I have a few pictures taken whilst I was making up the little jam jars of posies for the table settings and having a practice run at home the day before.

I used more of the ‘free’ pots for each of the five tables as centre pieces and filled them with dried hydrangea heads, carefully hiding the battery pack of the string of fairy lights in each pot.

We deliberately decided against the traditonal baby blue colours and instead chose muted autumnal heather colours of the dried hydrangeas. The posies of fresh flowers, hypericum berries, eucalyptus and thistle gave us the rich dark purple tones highlighted with a few cream roses and lisianthus.

The effect was just what we wanted and the warm glow from the candle votives and dotted fairy lights surrounding each centre piece really gave the whole room a lovely cosy autumn feel.

Everyone enjoyed the day – it is always lovely when all the family from both sides can come together for a catch up – we even had a cousin come all the way from Somerset.

So now it is time for a rest for a day or two and get my house back in order – then it is back up to North Yorkshire again next weekend to my sister’s to attend the talent show in her local village hall. My sister is taking part with her ‘secret’ talent but has also volunteered to replace a person who cannot make it – she is not sure what this person’s talent is yet but I hope that person is not the knife thrower….even worse…. the knife thrower’s assistant!!!

I have a lot of catching up to do in blogland as I have no idea what all of you have been up to – normal commenting from me should be resuming shortly!

Have a lovely week and welcome to my new followers. x