A very Happy Christmas

Despite my fears and worries, I had a fabulous time over Christmas. Mr Grumpy did the turkey, I did the veg and two friends of his came for Christmas dinner. As they are both Israeli Jews, I was slightly worried that they wouldn't 'do' Christmas, so I carefully wrapped their gifts in plain gold paper and put Happy New Year on the labels. That went down fine, as did the food and wine.

Mr G and my sister went completely mad, buying me tons of wonderful things - a smart phone, a gorgeous silver-green fleece, a purple watch, perfume, some of my favourite  Burts Bees products... I felt quite humble unwrapping parcel after parcel. I haven't got Mr G his 'big present' yet as he wants an expensive electric razor but said I should wait for the sales - which are now on, but he hasn't told me the make and model number yet.

In the evening, we visited his friends with the five boys. I'm delighted to report that the 2-year-old is back to his normal boisterous self, plaguing the daylights out of his siblings and the long-suffering Husky dog (which is the same age as him and weighs 13.5 stones).

It was also lovely to see our next door neighbour out of hospital at last and back home in time for Christmas. He still has a long way to go in terms of mobility. He can only look straight ahead, can't move his neck left or right, and can't raise his arms very high, but somehow he managed to make 16 full-size Christmas cakes to give to all the medics at two separate hospitals who have helped him so much over the course of this year. Now that he's back, we don't see nearly as much of Chi Mimi, but I did find her in a yoga pose the other day, in a cat bed in the corner of our lounge, snugly sandwiched between two radiators. Cats pick all the comfiest spots, don't they? I hope that you all had a lovely time over Christmas, too.