12 photos of Christmas

It's time for some Christmas photos! Not the best photos in the world, it has to be said, and remarkably lacking in all the other people we saw over the season. We spent Christmas with Graham's family, getting very well cooked for by his sister, his parents, and his aunt and uncle. My parents came to stay the day after we got home, and left the morning of New Year's Day. A quick tidy-up and we were ready for our second annual New Year's Day party, catching up with friends from the village and from church. But here's some photos of other things...

Our treat before Christmas was a visit to Lichfield's A Cathedral Illuminated. Six projectors provided an awesome 20-minute light show on the west front of the cathedral, including giant rolling baubles and singing angels.

Inside were dozens of decorated Christmas trees (I liked the one with teabags), a nativity and hundreds of paper angels.

Look at all those presents! Toby especially was very excited for Christmas this year, and could hardly wait until everyone was up and ready to open presents. This is his and Theo's collection.

OK, so we were all a little excited.

The highlight of my Christmas - straws! The boys had been ~~fighting over~~ sharing one red twirly straw for weeks. Now they have two each, and I don't have to remember whose turn it is any more.

Toby's space station, which was the subject of several letters to Santa. It required more building than I expected, but at least it kept us awake after Christmas dinner.

Theo is all into his playdough, so he was pleased with some new moulding tools.

Party hats at Christmas dinner! Toby had fallen over in the playground just beforehand and felt a bit funny, but he'd definitely recovered by the time we got to the pudding stage.

More presents: we all rather enjoyed Theo's new marble run.

And one of Toby's favourites was a kitchen science set. Here's the classic vinegar-and-bicarb volcano.

And finally, a Christmas pie. We didn't have leftovers, of course, but minced beef together with some onions, carrots and parsnips which didn't get eaten before Christmas made a delicious pie. And I had to have some fun with the spare pastry!

Comments

Where am I going now? The Portway

I should probably explain why I am pottering around Nottingham and its western suburbs, rather than roaming the Derbyshire countryside. It's not just the abundance of paved paths, although that certainly helps - I recently went on a country walk across a cow field and found myself tiptoeing gingerly across boggy mud cratered with six-inch deep hoof holes. Then I was confronted by a sign which said: Private Property, Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. I congratulated myself on being on a public right of way, then, a few steps on, consulted the map and realised I wasn't. The path was across a completely different field. nice scenery, though I digress. Apart from the absence of cows and angry landowners, the reason I am walking around Nottingham is that it's the start of the Portway. There is a blog called The Old Roads of Derbyshire , written by a man named Stephen Bailey, who has also published a book of the same name. I can't remember now whether I came across the book fir...

The Portway: Lenton to the Bramcote Hills

It was cold. My fingers were cold, and my phone was cold too. The OS map was totally failing to find my location, and the more I prodded it the less feeling I had in my fingers, so I gave up, shoved both my phone and my chilly hands into my pockets, and set off. After all, I knew where I was. This was Wollaton Park. And the path was very obvious. Just follow the avenue of trees... ...past the deer... ...and out through the fancy gates. Crossing a busy road brought me into a neat little housing estate with unusual round street signs. This was built when Wollaton Park was sold to Nottingham City Council in 1925. The old gatehouse, Lenton Lodge, is now estranged from the rest of the park, and stands by itself next to Derby Road. The bridge used to go over the Nottingham Canal, which has now been turned back into the River Leen. The unfortunate river got shoved out of the way whenever someone came up with a new building project. This is not its original course. My hands were warming up sli...

Portway: Bramcote Hills to Stanton-by-Dale

I parked in the free car park at Bramcote Hills Park and set off, naturally enough, in the direction of where I'd last been. Up some steps through the woods, along the edge with marvellous views northwards, and down past a school to pick up Moor Lane again. At that point I realised I was supposed to be walking this route in the opposite direction. Oops. Well, it didn't make much difference. It just meant that the Hemlock Stone would come at the end rather than the start. Also, I was doing a figure of eight, so I could switch paths in the middle. That sorted, I pressed on along the disused Nottingham Canal. This had varying amounts of water in it. There were good views back up to the double hump of the Bramcote Hills. Nottingham Canal Also Nottingham Canal Just before I got to Trowell garden centre, I crossed a bridge and walked across a green space to a partly built housing estate. The Boundary Brook had been aggressively re-wiggled. I'm sure it will look better in a year...

Martha's Marvellous Munchies

Search This Blog