Christmas

Oh Christmas. Dreamt about for weeks, sitting at my desk, longing for the last day at work, boarding the train, heading home for a week of doing very little but eating, drinking, spending time with the family. And now it has been and gone, always over so quickly, and I am at my desk, drinking hot chocolate, a whole new year stretched before me, work tomorrow.

But before the memory of Christmas fades entirely, whilst I still have Christmas chocolates uneaten and the Christmas Radio Times still waiting to be recycled on the coffee table, a few words and pictures from last week.

Arriving late at night to a surprisingly mild Norfolk. Making lists of all the food to be bought, doing the Christmas supermarket shop with my sister, vegetables from the market with Mum. Decorating the house, ivy from the garden woven up the staircase, wreaths hung, Christmas tree decorated. (A word on our tree: bought earlier in the year, pot bound, bushy. A summer in the garden and it had shot up but not outwards and was somewhat lopsided, which caused my sister and I some distress - wanting things to be perfect we almost went out and bought a bigger, finer, specimen, but then...then...we decided to see what it looked like once brought indoors and mounted on a chest. Decided that it wasn't going to be the size or the shape or the relative uprightness of the tree that made Christmas, decided that it was nothing some glass baubles and fairy lights wouldn't fix, and in the end, it did look rather elegant, at least from certain angles.) Wrapping final presents. Sinking into sofas to watch some excellent television, Dr. Who, Poirot, Great Expectations, Downton Abbey (*spoiler alert* Matthew and Mary!! Hurrah!! *end spoiler*). A Christmas Eve dinner with flickering candlelight and rising bubbles in the Champagne. Walks in the countryside, hurrying home before dusk fell, and on Boxing Day morning a walk in the beautiful sunshine, blue skies, dry heather. Preparing Christmas Day lunch with my sister, peeling mountains of potatoes, measuring nuts for the nut roast, Puppini sisters blaring out into the kitchen. Visiting family friends, some with warm kitchens and sleepy cats, others with gorgeous wide-eyed, small children to coo over. Coming back to London, bags heavier and more numerous, feeling happy, rested.

Hope you had a good one chestnuts!