Sunday 1st January 12

We saw the New Year in with Ros, and our boys stayed up with Ros' son who's their best friend.  I went out after midnight on a slightly naughty wooding trip, going into a building site where several trees had been murdered and butchered. I expect I was doing a favour for the builders, so they didn't have to heave the logs into a skip. I got in after 1am, bed after 2.

And up at a sensible time, a quiet day mainly, but mid afternoon I went out to do some chainsawing and a bit of splitting. One of my neighbours, next door but one came round to tell me off about this.  I think he's Christian and doesn't approve of people working on Sundays, as he doesn't.  He claims to get up at 5am 6 days a week, works hard (and told me that I don't work) and that on Sunday he requires me to not split logs as it is too noisy and bangy for him.  I had said to him a year ago when he came round to say the same thing in the same bullying manner, that I'd try to observe his preferences, but today, I'd forgotten it.

I once again agreed to not split logs on a Sunday.  I managed not to say anything about his car.

Saturday 31st December 11

Had a fairly quiet morning at my parents' house and at about 11am, Daddy took us to the station where we got the 11.47 train back to York.  Chatted with some nice folks who were heading to York for a short break over New Year, and then I read and deleted about 50 emails.

I cycled home and Gill and the boys got the bus, I called in to Country Fresh to do a pre-New Year pick up, and wish Richard a good 2012, and good luck with the changes.  The shop will open on Tuesday but then be closing down in the next few days.

I popped into Freshways to pick up there and got home shortly after the family got in.  I lit both stoves as the house was cold, and had lunch.

Friday 30th December 11

Morning with my parents, after lunch we were picked up by Anna, my sister, and taken to Middlewood, where she and her husband Douglas live, and we spent the afternoon with them.

In the evening we all got ferried back to the parents' house, for a second night.

Thursday 29th December 11

Getting ready to go to Sheffield.

I cycled down to town to put a cheque in, and onto the station where I bought tickets with the family railcard and waited for the rest of the family.  We got the 11.34 and by 12.20 we were in Sheffield, and we walked up the hill behind the station towards Norfolk Park, towards Thomas and Katie's house.

There was a strong wind blowing up the hill, and horizontal rain. I walked faster than Gill and the boys, with most of the bags of luggage.... and there coming towards me was Thomas, who greeted me warmly.  He continued on to go and meet the others, and told me to get on to the house to get out of the rain.

It was lovely to see his 3 kids, my nephews and niece, and see how quickly they're growing. Thomas had prepared some roast vegetables and I helped him make a nutloaf, and at about 2pm we had lunch.  Wholesome and filling... and immediately afterwards Tom and I went outside to split a large pile of cedar logs which had been dumped on his drive by a grateful patient.

Then Tom ran out of space to stack the logs I was splitting off, so we cleared out a couple of matured log stores, compacting them into a third area, leaving space to fill.  We really enjoyed working together, and did well over an hour of hard work.

However, they'd all been invited to a friend's house for 5.30 so at about 5, my Dad arrived in his car and the four of us decamped with him and drove the 10 or 15 minutes to Walkley where Mummy was waiting for us, and had cooked a lovely meal of...... nutloaf and roast vegetables!

We were given rooms for the night and were all very comfortable.