Christmas Eve...

A day of preparations as we waited for Mum and Dad to come and join us.

The weather early morning was fairly dry and bright and the cats took the opportunity to get outside and I found them snuggled up together on the sofa.   I left them to it whilst I did some cleaning and then got John telling me to get the camera because they had managed to get the magnets on their collars caught together and were looking rather unhappy about the whole experience!!

The weather rapidly deteriorated and we suddenly had torrents and torrents of rain.  It is early days in the cat flap stakes and so rather than have one very very soggy cat John went out and collected Minnie Mou - thank god we remembered to bring with us one of the golf umbrellas from where I used to work - a bit of free publicity for Porter Dodson Solicitors - bet they never expected the 'Protect' in their strapline to mean protect poor little kitties from monsoon rains!!!  

Minnie Mou does not like getting her feet wet so I think she will be expecting John to come and rescue her every time it rains!!

I had a phonecall from Mum to say that the loaf of bread she was bringing had turned out like a brick so I set about making a fresh loaf.  There is something very therapeutic about making bread and it turned out absolutely beautiful which just goes to prove (no pun intended) that you don't need (no further pun intended) a bread maker to make good bread.

Mum and Dad decided to leave a bit earlier than they had expected and arrived whilst it was still daylight and just about warm enough to sit outside and have their photograph taken - we were hoping to get us all in but Chivers had a different idea and Minnie Mou was desperate to get away.  We quickly moved indoors (shame really that the sun didn't stay out as it is really very pleasant in the soon to be 'conservatory').  Mum and Dad were much happier to pose for the family shot around the fire!

Mum was a star and along with many other things brought a home made curry and orzo pasta with her so we just had to ramp up the heat (John's speciality) crack open the wine, feed the cats (hence the view of John's backside) and eat before we settled down to watch the Kings Speech which we all enjoyed.  Toasty warm and pleasantly full we all chilled out.

It had been a lovely evening and we were all looking forward to Christmas Day together.  A quick tidy and we are all ready for the big day!