After months of build up…it’s all over for another year.

I got some nice presents, and today is a day for further exploring them, as the realities of a lot of time in the kitchen yesterday meant I could only glance at most of them (and not read the instructions properly on another 😉 )

The house is toasty warm, there’s a log fire burning and the children are engaged with the gifts Father Christmas brought. So Jim and I have gone into the kitchen to do some dishes and to begin thinking of preparing our lunch. Lots of leftovers! Some may certainly make the cut as reusable, while others will have to be ‘binned’. As the food’s mostly vegetarian, it doesn’t get thrown out, but rather it’s taken down to the compost heap for proper recycling. It’ll be the most marvellous compost by summer!

This afternoon’s a case of wrapping up warm and going for a walk along the coastline. Well, Grandma Keng and I are taking that walk, while the children are less interested in a long walk, desperate to be back to their toys, so after making sure they get some fresh air Jim will take them home while Grandma (Audrey) -now being called ‘Granny Odd’ 😉 by the elder two, she’s not, she’s all I could want in a mother in law- walk back along the shore for a couple of miles. Audrey is very typically pragmatically Scottish, and will pack a hip flask of brandy ‘to ward off the cold’ 🙂

We’ve a little bit of an adventure planned for this afternoon. A flask of tea, a hip flask of brandy and a couple of other items. I’ll report back this evening.

Ella