Tuesday, 27-12-22

Second time lucky!!

Morning, everyone.  After all the shenanigans of the last fortnight, today starts the walk back to normality again.  I don't really make a thing of New Year although Beth and Alex might possibly be over.

It's been a lovely Christmas.  I know I say I've had a lovely day rather often and it makes me realise how lucky I am to be able to say it in all honesty.  It was a bit different with just Beth and Alex on Christmas Day and two non-family gusts on Boxing Day for pretty much the first time ever but it was great.  Maybe a new tradition starting up.

I've been wanting to do this for ages - crackers with tuned bells inside and some music to play.  Eight crackers and an octave's worth of notes plus labels, 'music' and a little baton.

Mind you - some of the tunes were a bit - different.  Eileen and anyone else with a bit of music training will understand the limitations of one octave, no sharpened fourth or flattened seventh.  However, we managed and had enormous fun doing it.  I'm keeping them for next year when there will be a wider range of tunes to have a go at - I've already worked out a few.

Beth played her now traditional trick with the wooden nativity.  It started a long time ago with simple things such as hiding the baby or replacing him with a jelly baby and they became more sophisticated as the years went by.  Do you remember last year's?

Here we go . . .

. . . just to remind you . . .

. . . very topical

And very funny too.

This year's was brilliant but I will need to do a separate post on it.  Suffice it to say that it was based around my favourite ever Star Trek episode.  Can you guess which one it is?

My present from Beth and Alex this year was a Nespresso Inissia and she and Vincent must have been collaborating because he brought along a whole load of pods of various flavours and colours.
(as a side note, I had bought a reusable pod but it turns out that they are completely recyclable and make new pods - much better than some other coffee machines)

Beth didn't want my Dolce Gusto as she already has a Nespresso so I am now a posh person with two coffee machines.

After dinner and bells, Beth set everything up and we had a taster session.  She and I, being light-weights, gave up after three small, espresso sized coffees as we were all caffeined out, but the other two carried on for ages.  Where they put it, I have no idea!!  The Nespresso makes smaller amounts of coffee so I can use the other for mugs and the new one for the cheffy stuff!

Once everyone had gone and all was still and silent (apart from the dishwasher doing all the hard work), I set to and finished off the first of the mittens I am making to use up some of my four ply/sock yarn stash.

It's quite nice and fits well.  The pattern itself is not always clear and I'm not sure if I like the shaping at the top which I might adapt a bit when I start another pair, but it is OK for a more experienced knitter and the actual knitting is simple once one has mastered using double pointed needles.

I think this could be the first time I have started preparing for next Christmas before this Christmas.

On to today and there is absolutely nothing in the diary at all.  No commitments, no guests, nothing.  I did um and ah about staying in pjs and oodie all day but decided I wanted to have a bath and use one of my bath bombs so that rather means getting dressed afterwards - it does to me anyway.  
I have stuff I can do.  For a start, while the Christmas tree and certain decorations are staying up until Twelfth Night, there's quite a lot of other bits and bobs that can go away as and when the spirit moves, there's leftovers to deal with including quite a lot of turkey.  I stripped the carcass yesterday and boiled it up so I have some lovely stock to sort out.  There's also an untouched Christmas cake, sundry mince pies, etc, and way too much cheese.  Such a shame!!!
Then there's reading, knitting, Christmas telly recordings . . . oh, yes, plenty to do!

Here's today's Twelve Days gift to myself, some little scented candles.  Not the heavy, spicy scent of the Christmas season but, I hope, nice, light, floral fragrances to look ahead to spring.

Are you able to have an easier day today or are you still living it up?  Do say in the comments.  Whatever you have planned, have a great day and take care.  xx