Family visit, Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year

We had a quick tidy up, and organised the meal we would make for Eileen, Nina and my brother Alex. Diane phoned and chatted for a while during the afternoon. Both Mas and I were feeling particularly tired today, and think that the dreariness of the cold day does not help.

The family arrived just past seven in the evening, and we sat in front of the warm fire drinking gin and tonic by candlelight while the meal finished cooking. We had plenty to talk about as we have not seen each other for a year.

Mas made a Christmassy meal with turkey and all the fixings, which we had after the nice sweetcorn soup he makes. Everyone seemed to enjoy the meal and the conversation. Alex and I having the chance to snicker at things a couple of times, as we share the same sense of humour.

After a nice but exhausting evening we tottered off to bed without clearing up first, which is unusual for us. It had been fun though.

This morning I cleared up, but still felt tired. Later as it was Ashworthy's birthday I dropped off a birthday card and set off to walk for an hour. After a short walk I saw Margaret walking with Henry the dog, so I walked home with her chatting; it was too cold to stand and talk. As we approached her house it began to rain, so instead of walking I went in with her and had tea and bread pudding with her and John and chatted for a while. We planned to walk tomorrow with Henry if it was not snowing.

Back home again Mas mentioned regretfully that he had forgotten it was Valentine's day. After all this time together I don't think we need reminding how we feel about each other!
In the evening we watched The Lost World with Bob Hoskins, James Fox and Peter Falk which was entertaining.

Christmas day and Boxing day

On Christmas day we were woken at 9.30 am, which is late for us, by a neighbour. We had a very relaxed day talking and watching TV. Pete called, and we chatted for a while. We saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which we both thought was the best of these films that we had seen, and some of the Battlestar Gallacticas that Toby had sent. A cozy day with Salty in front of the fire; we tried out the new laser light cat toy, but he got so excited we had to stop after a short time.

On Boxing Day Monica phoned to postpone our visit as she was, sadly, feeling rather ill, but the boys were feeling better by now. We had a surprise call from Eileen saying that she and my brother Alex would be in our neighbourhood in the evening, and could they visit us, and so they arrived later bearing whisky based mince pies and a bottle of wine. We sat in front of the fire chatting about their holiday; visiting St. Petersburge, Estonia and Finland, while Alex played with Salty.
It was nice to see them both.