Our Christmas Present to Ourselves arrives!!!

The world may be a bonkers place at the moment but the sight of one of our cat's chilling puts such a smile on my face.  As we have now started to have a fire most nights the house is toasty and warm and Mr Boo, Charlie and Minnie take advantage of that fact.  The house still seems strange without Chivers taking up his space on the settee - it will be the first Christmas in ten years without him.

I had earmarked cooking for today as I had forgotten there was still one 'normal' Sunday to go before Christmas so I needed to do something with the mystery piece of meat we had taken out of the freezer - wrapped in a bag marked 'Pork Spare Ribs' it was clearly NOT as there was no bone to be seen - initially we couldn't even really tell if it was pork but as it thawed we were sure that it was and so I decided I would do pulled pork and we could have it with jacket potatoes and coleslaw.  

I made some orange soup with some left over veggies which I thought might have been ok for one lunch over Christmas but I was a little heavy handed with the ginger so think it might be a bit on the spicy side for Mum's palate - John and I had it for our tea instead!

I had brought home Mum's tried and tested recipe for Mulled Wine and set about getting that on the go for Christmas Eve just in case anyone wants a taste.  We have asked Les, Sheila and Klaus and Sonia to call in to kick start our celebrations and they have said yes so that is great and we will be ok as we are allowed 10 people in the house.

It is really quite difficult to believe that Christmas Day is now only a week away as the weather has bucked its ideas up and the sun is shining and it is really warm outside.  Warm enough for me to spend an hour or so in the garden clearing up the leaves form the tree in the photograph which is in the field next door and which took a battering from the wind the other day - the only trouble is that these leaves stain everything they touch.

We had to stay in an around the house this afternoon anyway because there was great excitement in the Wiseman household as our Christmas Present to ourselves was being delivered!!!  We had bought two armchairs to go into the lounge as the tub chairs from the conservatory have really seen better days.  They have chairs like this in the Gin Bar and we have always liked them so we ordered from the same place and they delivered.  You can tell these are new as they are slightly 'sit up and beg' as the cushion you sit on is very firm to say the least - it just needs to relax a bit with a couple of big backsides sitting on it.  I am really really pleased with them - just hope we can stop the cats from hitching/scratching the material!

Although the post is a bit wayward (always the case this time of year though) we have received a few Christmas Cards from our lovely friends over in the UK.  Interestingly many of them seem to have a Gin theme - should I be worried??

This pretty card was from our fabulous friends Joani and Roger (and Daisy Dog) who we love and miss - sadly Joani's father passed away earlier this year - he was such a character and will be missed - not least for his supply of fresh tomatoes in the winter from his hot houses.  He had the most fabulous collection of orchids I have ever seen.

So whilst on the subject of Christmas Cards hopefully the few we did send will have arrived as John's cousin Karen was posting them and she was able to return to the UK on the same flight as Lakis and Argy and I had managed to find my elusive UK stamps which makes a change.  We don't send many as we prefer to make a donation to charity instead.  This year we sent a donation to an appeal made by one of John's old school friends who has rescued a very poorly dog.   If we do get any visitors next year would they be kind enough to bring me a book of UK stamps - I would be very grateful!