We Wish You a Merry Christmas…

Here’s the next exciting installment of our Christmas story.

We spent the run up to Christmas and the actual day with the Davies’ in Stafford. The train journey was slightly marred by the fact that our coach was the only one where the reservations weren’t working. That said, we got seats together after half an hour or so. Movement around the train was hampered by a lot of luggage in the aisles due to the tiny luggage racks and with so many plain black suitcases around, I’d be surprised if everyone left with the correct ones. We got there in the end though.

We were really looking forward to Christmas ‘09 as it was the first one that Scarlett would really understand & be excited about. Unfortunately she was a bit poorly and spent the entire Christmas Eve lying on the settee with a high temperature, picking unenthusiastically at a bowl of dry Cheerios. By the next day though, she’d perked up considerably and enjoyed the rest of the festivities. She was even well enough for our traditional Christmas day walk. We all had a lovely time and had some great presents so thank you the Davies’.

Twas the Week Before Christmas

Here’s the run-up to the Christmas festivities then. The week before the big event, we (us & T, G & O) sort of invited ourselves to Paul & Sarah’s for a sleepover. We’d had a snowfall so the plan was to all meet up at Roundhay Park for some sledging fun and then go back to Paul & Sarah’s for wine and food. Of course, we had massive delays on the train due to it being the first real snow of winter and had to wait for an hour in Wakey. We then missed the bus because Andrew realised that he’d lost his yearly Metro Card. (This was recovered the following day as someone had handed it in at Boots. There’re still some gooduns out there.)

When we finally got to Roundhay, the others had pretty much had enough. Dougie (Paul & Sarah’s new dog, adopted from Gemma’s Mom, Susan) had cut his foot so Paul & Sarah took him back to theirs. Olive was starting to cry and after an over-exhuberant sledge ride courtesy of Andrew, Scarlett was too. It was absolutely freezing so after about three goes we decided to call it a day. Tom & Gemma drove Olive back to the house & the plan was that we’d wait for them at the park to come back and collect us. This would’ve been ok but for the sub-zero temperature and the Arctic winds so shelter was sought and found in the Roundhay Fox. By the time we’d walked the 4 minute journey, Scarlett was hysterical due to the cold. I had to remove her wellies & thaw out her toes in the pub and it was a good ten minutes before calmness was finally restored.

After all this, a lovely night was had despite Olive having an uncharacteristic poor sleep. Copious amounts of red wine were drunk & Sarah’s lovely aubergine bake was consumed. After a hearty breakfast on Sunday morning we all headed off but not before we’d persuaded Paul & Sarah to book Centre Parcs. Yay! We’ll be taking over the resort at this rate.

What a Wimpy

On Saturday, we fought through the snow and slush to meet up with the Smith-Forrests and Paul & Sarah in Crossgates for some charity shopping and the inevitable Wimpy dinner. We really like Wimpy; we love the fact they still have table service & that their meals come on china plates. We also love the fact that they’re still hanging on by a thread despite years of tough competition from the bigwig burger bars. I think perhaps that these very differences that once made them seem outmoded, are now their unique selling point.

Any road, when we got there after a slight train delay, we were pleasantly surprised to find that Neeley & Joe had come along for the ride. This very much excited Scarlett as she really likes Joe.

Snowy Days

Hello and welcome to 2010 everyone. I shall be posting about Christmas and the New Year in due course but thought I’d start off with some snowy pictures from the last week or so. This might surprise everyone but we’ve had some snow in these parts. I know, it’s truly shocking what with it being winter and all. Anyway, we, unlike many, have been mostly enjoying the snow. That said, it’s actually very hard to push a buggy uphill through several inches of slush.

These first pictures were taken in and around Wakey.

Here’s Scarlett’s first ever snowman as last year when it snowed she pretty much hated it. When I say it’s Scarlett’s snowman, what I really mean is that she added about one cupfull of snow to it and we did all the rest. I think you’ll all agree that he’s a handsome fellow.

Here’s us at the park having more snowy fun.

Way Back Again

These photos are from the same set and were taken at Garforth Train Station on the day of Olive’s birthday do. We should go back to the old days because everyone looks better in black and white.

Way Back When

Way, way back in sunny September, we, Sarah and Tom & Olive, wended our merry way to Undercliffe Cemetery in Bradford. The reason I speak of it now is because I took my trusty Olympus Trip on said adventure and have only just had the pictures developed. Undercliffe Cemetery is the coolest burial-place that I’ve visited although Key Hill Cemetery on the outskirts of Birmingham, looks amazing from the train and is on our list of places to go before and/or after we die.

Crisp Almighty!

If you want fancy buying a multi-pack box of Walkers Crisps this season then I suggest you get yourself down to the Asda store in the Cornbow Centre, Halesowen. I’d recommend that you get your skates on though as there are only a few boxes left.

Autumn Days

This first set of pictures is from the first weekend of October when we went to the park to collect conkers and acorns. It also happened to be one of the windiest couple of days of the year so there were thousands upon thousands of conkers just lying there for the taking.  The last two pictures of leaves in the air are supposed to illustrate how windy it was but they’re not brilliantly clear.

The second set of pictures were taken on a much more peaceful day at the end of October .

Seagull Girl

Scarlett very much enjoys pretending to be a seagull at the moment and here’s how she does it: She surreptitiously purloins a black biro, draws all over her hands, arms & face and flaps around, squawking and declaring her love of eating fish. In this case, she even managed to draw on her tummy. Aside from the squawking and flapping, I’m not entirely sure why she thinks this behaviour likens her to a seagull but then I guess that I’m not two.

Ooooohhh! Ahhhhhhh!

 

We took Scarlett to Leeds on the 12th for the switching-on of the Christmas lights and the fireworks display that followed. Pixie Lott was the salabrity doing the switching and also a bit of singing beforehand which we could have done without. Still, after all the waiting around and closing-of-ears to the local radio dj’s squawking, we were treated to some decent fireworks. The lights in Leeds are always good and it was quite nice to actually see them come on as it were. Scarlett loved the fireworks, anyway.

By the by, we forgot to take the camera so these are from my phone, hence the grainy quality.