December Days

Feels slightly strange to have Christmas images still to post, but it was most enjoyable, and I wanted to share. M made it back from Japan as you know, C battled her way back from Paris bearing gifts of Laduree macaroons and I made it to Norfolk for a family Christmas.

Frosty mornings, rising mist. Horses in cold fields. Nut roast made by S, sprouts, roast potatoes, parsnips, carrots. Marzipan flecked stollen, bowls of clementines. Agatha Christie adaptations on the television, Puppini Sisters' Christmas on Spotify. Reading on window seats as the sun set behind trees. Drifting asleep on the sofa, frequently, unashamedly, eventually mooching to bed then rising late in the morning. A present from Anna wrapped in the most beautiful homemade wrapping paper. A Boxing Day walk, crunching across frozen grass. Champagne from cut glass, Snowballs and maraschino cherries. Half grapefruits for breakfast, sugar scattered, eaten with the help of a present of vintage grapefruit spoons and a serrated angled knife, lacking only a butler to undertake the preparation. Fairy lights and two Christmas trees, one fake and decorated in reds and golds, one real, blue needled, the scent of pine and snowy forests. My grandmother overcoming a lack of technical know-how to sit at the laptop and scroll through post after post of this blog, way back in the archives, because she hadn't seen it before, and wanted to. Family time, sister time.

Back to London for the last two days of December, ready to welcome in the New Year.