What are you all up to
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Oh dear. Nothing like conflicting advice. The CAMOGG facebook group consensus is for series.
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Well bit dejected here, we're normally the first ones in our part of the close to put Christmas lights up (on the 1st) but we've been beaten not once but twice!
On my travels I have seen a lot of decorations up. much earlier than in previous years.
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We have no idea whether the Katharine of Aragon festival will go ahead in January but we live in hope. No I didn't dress up as well
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Millie, your co worker looked like he had escaped from Santas Grotto. Nice photo.
A day of tidying the garden, well this afternoon was. Morning taken up with Taxi service for MiL.
Not much of a walking day today despite some good weather.
We're more of a "Do we have to put decorations up?" type of household, or at least I am until reminded about being a Grouch.
Mrs WN has gone quite minimalist with them in recent years. I think that's her idea of a compromise. Must admit that she has a cute little metal tree and half of the decorations are from her childhood, so it's very old world that way.1 -
I know we need cheering up but far far too early for me. Even on the 1st, I do hope you keep them alight until 12th night?
Our church is doing advent windows again this year, hopefully more than 24 houses this year, there's been lots of volunteers, not us, it was lovely last year. A map to show where and which - gives a nice twist to an evening dog walk.
Our decs have got less over the years, but the tree has lots of old decs, despite being fibre optic 🤣🤣. I always have outdoor cyclamens either side of my candle bridges for those no longer sharing our Christmas, they now have to double or triple up 😱, they get put in the garden afterwards and we now have quite a collection.
At least we should be able to see our son and daughter in law for a few days 😀.
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That's quite a costume Millie, what a good picture, scarlet cloth was quite special! I hadn't heard of Old Scarlet, he looks a bit Quasimodo-ish! Thanks.
Corners we're having Lights On evening next week, everyone near us is going to have a go at brightening up the neighbourhood. We've got one or two who make a huge effort every year so our display won't match theirs! Not looking forward to getting the boxes out of the loft and won't be doing much inside, we've managed to keep a good sized potted tree alive this year.🌲
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Steve, our Old Scarlet, says he feels like a mix of Little Red Riding Hood and Father Christmas!! 😅 He always does Old Scarlet tours during the Katharine of Aragon festival at the end of January every year. Old Scarlet himself is buried inside the Cathedral - quite an honour for a 'commoner'.
We are considering putting our Christmas decorations up at the weekend. No-one else round here has yet which is unusual. Grand-daughter put her tree up at the weekend. No news yet as to whether 10 month old great grandson has 'undecorated' it. 🤣
I love your idea of cyclamens in remembrance of loved ones no longer with us. I might copy that. Our little baby daughter, Lucy Kate, died just before Christmas 44 years ago. Always a difficult time for us.
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My thoughts are with you Millie, some anniversaries never really go. Do hope you will be seeing some of your family? I wonder how the three household idea will work out, I feel we're so near to resolving the virus threat that I prefer to be cautious. The alternative is sitting around the turkey with our coats on with the windows open!
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Thank you for your kind thoughts brue. We aim to have a much reduced Christmas this year. We hope to go to eldest son and his family for a couple of hours. The plan is to have lunch in their conservatory with the windows open - luckily I have a couple of Christmas jumpers (I might wear both of them!). As much as we would love to go over to NI to see youngest son and family and the current rules would allow it, we have all decided that it is not worth the risk. Will you manage to see anything of your family?
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Oh milliehull very saddened to read about your anniversary 😢. Thoughts are with you, I wonder how anyone comes to terms with such losses. Puts my mum's passing 1st anniversary into context.
Milliehull I be honoured if you borrowed my idea. My cycalems brighten my conservatory for the dreary weeks after Christmas too.
Mixed feelings over Christmas mixing myself too. It will be lovely to meet son and DIL, it will be their 1st full Christmas together. I'm sure we will be ok, we don't mix (Billy no mates!) I ocassionally meet a friend to walk at the mo and their bubble is very small and DIL's job means socially isolated anyway 🤣 same as her mum, son working from home. However, I think we're opening up a can of worms as a country. BUT I fear folks would meet up anyway 😤😤 maybe this is best of a bad job? Let's hope folks respect it!
Our daughter in NZ finds our lockdown rules 'interesting' 🤣🤣🤣.
Edit my great niece arrived safely Saturday evening. Mum and baby doing well, dad and big sister coping!
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On the subject of Christmas Lights there is a Close on an adjacent estate that puts on a wonderful display of lights every year. (I think it's a condition of buying a house there that you must be willing to do your bit
) Over the years it has raised tens of thousands of pounds for the local Hospice. They have decided not to go ahead this year because the display usually draws large crowds of people and they had no way of knowing what the situation would be in December.We have decided that we won't bother with decorations this year as it will only be us that sees them. The Christmas Cards will give a bit of a festive air. I do have a live Christmas tree that normally lives in a pot in the back garden so I will take that round and put it in the front porch. Fortuitously I have a box of unopened Christmas lights which I can use without the need to get up in the loft!
David
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So glad to hear the good news of your great niece bakers2. Losing our little daughter was difficult and heartbreaking. You never forget but we have learnt to live with it. We are so very lucky as we have 3 children, 8 grandchildren and a great grandson. Thank you for your kind thoughts. Thoughts are with you as well for the loss of your Mum. They are always with us. Enjoy your Christmas with your son and DIL. I am sure you will have such a lovely time with them. I think you and us are hopefully being sensible about our celebrations. Like you I think even without the latest regulations some people would 'go for it' anyway. I really do hope that people will take care but somehow I doubt it ☹
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That number is about half of what we normally do, and like you we may get a,few more in before the end of the year if everything falls into place, but I'm not staking my life on it. There's always next year, and the one after that when perhaps we will all be back to normal.
Lovely photos, B2. We've not seen any frost at all up in the North West, but plenty of rain!
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My thoughts as well. My parents had to go through losing a child.
Unfortunately Linda was a Spina Bifida child who lived to nearly 5 before she succumbed. I know my mother was especially affected. I wasn't born until a year or so later. I think they wouldn't have more children whilst they had Linda to look after.
We live not too far away from where Linda is buried in a small parish churchyard and pay our respects whenever we can.
They never knew whether the fact that my father was on Christmas Island with the RAF and involved in the loading of A Bombs onto the aircraft plus the after effects of watching the experiments had any detremental effect on him. I have a slight curvature of the spine amongst various other problems but no-one can say yay or nay. Makes one think though.
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Since we passed on the task of hosting Christmas Day to our son and daughter several years back, we have only had minimal decorations up.......a very small artificial tree, 2 candle bridges in the front windows, and a couple of "light curtains" of stars in the other lounge windows.
We used to have a 4 year rota, year 1 was us, year 2 was DIL's parents, year 3 was DIL's brother and wife, year 4 was our son and wife. As the families expanded, and we oldies got older, this got too difficult, so we oldies "retired" when DD moved from a small flat to a bigger house, and later got married.
The first year it was her turn (2016) she had us, our son and family and his in-laws, her own in-laws and an aunt and cousin of her husband, 14 in total, it was chaotic!
First year in her present house, where there is much more space, she wanted to invite all her family and all her husband's family.......they are a big family, would have been about 24 people, but with about a month to go, the in-laws pulled out, so ended up being only 9 of us. So now, normally we go one year to our son while DD and family go to her in-laws, and the next year our family are all at her house.
It does get very difficult to keep everyone happy as the extended family gets bigger and bigger. No problem this year as we are restricted anyway!
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We'll be on our own, occasionally this happens anyway, last year we were very busy. With a working family there are are lots of outside contacts so it may be for the best this time round. I'm not looking forward to it but it could be worse. If things are OK we'll do some outside visits in the New Year and take the motorhome out too.
Trying to pack gifts etc this week to get everything off on time, makes a change to feel organised!
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WN so sorry to hear about your sìster and also your problems. Yes it does make you think. Many years ago we had a neighbour who had been on Christmas Island and their son was born with a badly deformed arm and hand and spent years having various operations. Nobody could say yay or nay to them either.
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Our daughter in NZ finds our lockdown rules 'interesting' 🤣🤣🤣.
'interesting' Bakers2!! I find them confusing and everyone seems to be interpreting them differently
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I’ve been persuaded that we’ll decorate as normal this year, though there will be no partying. We’re going across the yard to our son’s house for Christmas dinner (DIL is much more capable than me now, at cooking for a lot of people - though there will only be 6 of us). It sometimes feels strange that we are the guests rather than the hosts. It doesn’t seem long ago that we had big family parties here, with mountains of food and drink, followed by childish games with prizes.
We’ll have a large real tree in the hall, with ancient and modern decorations, and artificial trees in the four front bedroom windows - though no one will see them except us crossing the yard, and the milk tanker driver.
But not yet - maybe the weekend before Christmas - and kept up until 12th Night.
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I don't think it matters what the rules are!!! The sensible amongst us will probably stick to minimum contact and the not so sensible won't give a damn?
David
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Mrs WN had her hair appointment today so I was tasked with doing the fresh food shop. As I'm the one that does the list and the cooking it made sense. Anyway everything went well and there were not too many people in at 10 this morning.
This afternoon MiL wanted some card for her card making so we had to drive to the local garden centre that has a craft section. Quite full there but I left them to it and popped into the local caravan dealer for a Mains Hook Up adaptor as our old one definitely needed replacing. No-one else in the shop area so very pleased.
We're hoping to have a day out tomorrow. Just have to decide where to go and what to do. Probably end up climbing something or birdwatching along the Welsh coast.
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Not the best day weather wise, wet and grey had another cardio appointment today , 3 on reception several doctors? nurses and Me all on my own
in socially distancing waiting room ,ECG and another 24hr monitor fitted ,Not good journey to hospital as car batt really flat again
put on charge but not eugh to start car after an hour just missed direct bus ,so had a walk into town and pick up one of the other routes (three companies to choice from
got to hospital with four minutes before app went in almost on timeBatt charger showing maintain when i got back ,need car first thing to get some shopping and a drop at recycle centre on the way (hope queue not to long when checking times over last week it has been anything from 12mins to 90 mins for time we hope to go , monitor to be returned by 1230 , and even with this lockdown ,the "school run" is still making the usual traffic nightmare in this area with roads gridlocked morning and afternoons
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Diego Maradona has just passed away, aged 60.
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Have you got a trickle charger JV? Worth having at times like this. Some modern cars use a heck of a lot keeping systems turning over when not going far. We’ve been giving our Jeep a run a couple of times a week, bit further than usual to walk pooch, or going a different route doing errands.
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Yes he’d had brain surgery recently though. He hadn’t been healthy for a very long time.
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I have a Halfords charger than has a maintain mode when batt charged ,not sure if can just leave it on?
Our problem is the garage is rented off the LA (will not sell it even though it is at the end of our garden) have been keeping car outside with solar panel keeping batt topped up ,but when we went away before lockdown ,people had noticed car "missing" so have put it in garage but need a very long extention lead to get to car and charger via out outdoor socket (nothing simple
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