Sunday after Christmas...

Sunday morning afforded us a little time to get square after the celebrations.  First of all we surveyed the remains of John's fireglove which was sitting under the woodburner and which must have got caught by a wayward spark.  Lots of the wood we burn can have a strong smell so we don't always take a lot of notice of charred aromas although on this occasion I did mention it after a while - as it had developed into an acrid smell.  We were lucky because the fireglove was smouldering away quite nicely in a basket that also contained two boxes of firelighters - we could have had a right old mess on our hands if that had gone unnoticed overnight!!

We then turned our attention to the gifts we had received and which had been stacked up in the conservatory.  Now we could give them the attention that they really deserved.

We had some really lovely presents this year - we must be easy to buy for because people got things absolutely spot-on.

Although we had not expected my sister to mark the occasion this year she did send us all small parcels and in mine was a beautifully stitched cat brooch and John was ecstatic to find that his contained some really nice socks.  Socks are the only thing John asks for at Christmas and people think he is joking but he is a man who loves a nice pair of socks or three.  The lovely lanterns came from Rob and Diana and they will grace either the conservatory or the garden when the pool project gets completed.

There was also a recurring New England colour-scheme theme to other gifts which came from my mum, my mother in law, my beautician friend Kate and my lovely friend Elaine.  In fact the oven gloves from Elaine are just too beautiful to dirty but I will hang them with pride in the kitchen and forbid anyone to use them.

Boris is now completely bored of the whole Christmas thing save for the fact that occasionally he and Chivers get a morsel of leftover turkey and only then as a bribe to get their heads out of the fridge when I open it.  The weather has been glorious and Boris has taken to sprawling in the sunshine in the conservatory.  I only said to John today that I don't remember any of our four previous Christmas's being anything like so warm.  We may need to brace ourselves for a miserable January/February.

So glorious that I got my washing done and out on the line and dried this morning and the whites could star in a Persil advert by the looks of them. This is such a bonus for this time of year and glorious sunshine means we are continuing to generate some of our own electricity.

We are now a bit out of sync as to whose turn it is to cook on Sunday so with that in mind and probably because neither of us felt like cooking we had decided to go to Fitos instead - having first made sure he was going to be open and having booked the table in the corner so we were tucked away from the door and in a right old suntrap.

John has extolled the virtues of the village chicken soooo much that both Mum and Dad decided they had to try it.  We had a lovely meal even with the added protein of a pickled slug - it made us laugh so much that nobody was bothered about it.  What happened was that we had a whole host of 'extras' with our meal including a plate of fresh raw cabbage which was pickled in lemon juice, olive oil and black pepper.  Unfortunately one determined slug had clung on for dear life and as we were tossing the cabbage in the dressing it made an appearance.  Poor Fitos was mortified!

We were joined at the table by the resident taverna cat which we had christened Hitler (black moustache and combover side parting) but it transpires she is a girl and so we now call her Eva (Braun).  She benefited from some leftover pork chop and village chicken and we still took home some chicken and some moussaka which will keep Dad going for a day or so!

We returned to ours for our regular Sunday afternoon game of cards.  The extra large print ones I have purchased do not seem to be doing me any favours and I seem to bring up the rear too many times for my liking.  John, the Scorer, always seems to win - strange that !!!




We then enjoyed a quiet evening snuggled on the sofas warm and well fed catching up on some the Christmas specials that had been broadcast on the TV and which we had missed.

We have another Christmas celebration tomorrow when we have Lou and Hywel and Claire and Mina round for a meal - it will be a laugh - it always is with them!!