Christmas with Family

My Christmas was spent with family this year. My brother Pete and his wife Raelene came all the way from Australia and joined me, my step mother and two other brothers, James and Doug, together with their wives and kids. It involved me driving around 500 miles in all.. not all of it at speed..Here I am parked on the M40 for no obvious reason.

We were also joined, to my utter delight, by Doug’s new puppy, a working Cocker called Oreo…

And here are most of the family enjoying Christmas. We were only missing my sisters Romy and Penelope and their families.

New Year will be a much quieter affair. I am not a fan of New Year’s Eve parties so I will hide and come out on New Year’s Day to share it with Stan and some of his friends. Happy 2015 to you all!

Happy Xmas to all my readers!

This is one of my many winter visitors, a lesser spotted woodpecker, working out how to reach the fat pack. He comes most days and is a pleasure to watch. A different sort of Xmas card to you!

Since last writing,things have progressed. I decided to go with my heart rather than my head and did not leap straight back into full time employment. Instead I advertised myself a little and kept my eyes and ears open. As a result I have one regular lady I now clean, garden and occasionally dog walk for. On 2nd January I start work at Kings Bromley Marina, cleaning their loos and showers. It is only for 90 minutes a day but it is 5 days a week, all through the year. I can go whenever suits me, which means I can fit it round other jobs. It also entitles me to various really useful discounts on diesel, coal, gas and pump outs which helps. Both cleaning jobs have a better pay rate than I received at the wedding venue I worked for and it also feels like I am self employed and hiring my time out to various people, rather than just working for one. There is also a chance of more hours at the marina once the hire boat season starts.

I need to find one or two other little jobs to entirely keep my head above water, but at present things feel pretty darned good! Even Bonny is a working dog again as she is welcome at the marina. I have also started writing the book that has been in my head for 6 years or so, but that is going rather slowly and I haven’t finished the first chapter yet, but I hope to persevere. It all feels like I am going with the flow and the flow is good.

Christmas will be a mixed blessing this year. On the positive side I am going to visit family which this year includes my brother Peter and his wife from Australia. I am driving down to my step mum’s in Lymington on Christmas Eve, where I shall meet up with Pete and Raelene. Then we will all descend on my youngest brother, Doug on Christmas Day. On Boxing Day I shall drive in convoy with the rest, up to another brother, James, in Sevenoaks, Kent. The next day I shall drive round the dreaded M25 to get home; one of the negatives! The other down side is that I have to leave Bonny behind. We are rarely apart these days so it is a bit of a wrench but she will be very happy at Stan’s. He isn’t too happy that I am going either, but understands about family.

I hope you who read this have a wonderful Christmas and that 2015 is the year that all your dreams come true!