Friday 25 December 2009

Friday 25th December 09

Both the children slept downstairs because of the coldness of the house, so I don't know what time they woke up as it didn't disturb me! I woke slowly at 9.30 and came down and both were happily ensconced on the computer, and didn't open their presents til after 10am. I was pleased to get a NewScientist book 'How to Fossilise Your Hamster' and a relative had given me a bottle of red wine... as usual... and I don't drink red wine, hardly ever. I do use it in cooking though...

An hour later I was getting ready to go to work down at the Novotel, just an hour or two of Professor Fiddlesticks, no Father Christmas this year, due to a mistake by the hotel, it seems.

I cycled down in costume, and was immediately surrounded by people gathering for their Xmas lunch, happy to be entertained. I did some circus workshops and balloon modelling... and met the 'impostor', a nice young chap called Andrew who did some close-up magic. He told me he'd never done Father Christmas before; I wished him the best of luck!

So I did a continuous stint from 11.45 til 2pm... had a lovely, fun but full-on time. I came back via Freshways, who open every day... as they are Muslim, they open on Christmas day too, as it's not a holiday for them. I bought batteries for our youngest who has had a K-NEX present which has a motor... but no batteries. They gave me a box of unsold mini-aubergines, which look very much like they'll make a good meal tomorrow, a moussaka probably.

I got changed and watched The Queen's Speech before going into the garden and sorting some of the accumulated compostables into several of my 'dalek' bins. I got very cold, and when it got too dark to do more compost heap building, I took some dry logs to the front of the house so I can start to rebuild the severely depleted front-door logpile tomorrow.

So, warmed up, helped Gill in the kitchen, watched a few minutes of Happy Feet which our youngest was enjoying, and then 'The Gruffalo' which is a book I don't know but I enjoyed the TV version!

We got a phone call from my little brother who is coming over from Sheffield tomorrow with his family, and we had to decide whether to meet up in town and eat out, or to come here and have food at home. Neither of our boys fancied going into town so we rang back and said to come here. So then Gill and I got busy making chunky vegetable soup...

I also sorted out a large pile of pears, definitely in a state where they couldn't be sold, but I tidied them up and got them drying on the stove!

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