Happy New Year

Looking at the blog, it seems that I didn't post as many photographs over the holiday as I thought I had.

It's always a bit tricky to publicise the fact that you are not at home so travels are usually reported after the fact. We flew to Stansted on 23rd December and picked up a hire care, the travel went smoothly despite threats of storms and ad weather. As soon as we arrived at Hollylands, we were able to relax and get into the mood for Christmas. MK and I spent the 24th preparing food and doing some last minute gift wrapping so everything was ready for the big day.

Christmas day was very nice. It started with presents and an odd family tradition of pork pie for breakfast before we all went to Nether Whitacre church (some more enthusiastically than others) for the family service.

We got home to smell of roasting turkey and having done most of the preparation the day before, we were able to relax and enjoy a glass or two of bubbly before lunch. The lunch was pretty good although I suspect that the turkey would have been better with half an hour less cooking. The Christmas pud was good enough to overcome any of the turkey's dryness. It was great for MK and the boys to finally meet Auntie Ann, I hadn't seen her for almost 20 years so we had a chance to catch up.

If I remember correctly, we went to Kingsbury water park on Boxing Day for a walk and met a man walking his pet barn owl.

On 27th we went to Chipping Norton to see the Pantomime. I had neglected to tell MK what to expect, she hat translated it to some sort of mime and was quite confused by the first half hour of bad jokes, men in dresses and audience participation. She got into it at the end and both the boys absolutely loved it, especially DK who joined in very enthusiastically.

After another relaxed day, we headed home on 29th (wishing Grandad in America a Happy Birthday en-route).