Christmas at the Botanics

It's a long time since we've been to the botanics, it was a regular haunt when the kiddies were wee, but only during the hours of daylight. These days they light up the place at Christmas and charge money to wander about in the dark. It is good, though it would be even better if it wasn't for all the other people there...

Woo Hoo It's Christmas!

Christmas comes but once a year, and when it does we dance like idiots. We were at home for Christmas this year, and hosted la famille Millar for exchanging gifts and eating. Helen did a magnificent turkey with all the fixin's but I didn't get a picture of that, or anything else. These are just a few snaps we took while waiting for folk to show up...

Along December

A December miscellany; the view from my office window, a cheesy corporate portrait; Holly's dress from last month's fashion show, and a few snaps of Christmas chez Lodge.

Down in the Derbyshire Dales

Happy New Year! We spent a few days with some chums staying at the Peak District Holiday Barn over new year. The usual suspects, it was us and the Evanses, the McKees, the Gipson-Sokoloffs and the Chisholms. It was nice just hanging out and eating and drinking and having little outings. We had a nice - if somewhat chaotic - dinner at the Bull's Head in Foolow. We visited Eyam, a "plague village" where the villagers deliberately isolated themselves from the rest of the world when the plague struck in the 17th century. We climbed Peter's Stone in Cressbrook Dale. And we had a few pints in the weirdest little pub in the world.

December Catchup

Another month, another set of pseudo-random snapshots. Feast your eyes on Louis' guitar recital, St Giles' Cathedral (for a choir Christmas concert), Louis after a Cubs 100 celebration, sunset on the canal, bleak scenes at Cammo, and a little taste of Christmas chez nous.

November Catchup

Another collection of unrelated snaps from November. Including reading to Lewis, a stroll up Corstorphine Hill with Catherine, a new Cub uniform for Louis, a sunny commute to CGI, and the (underwhelming) Street of Light, part of Edinburgh's Christmas.

Ice Cream On Crouch

Ice cream, outside in the cold in the middle of winter, just as it's getting dark. Not your average frozen dairy product scenario, but we were visiting Kirsty, Peter, Bea and Imogen in Burnham on Crouch as part of our Essex Christmas. This is, in effect, the only picture I took on the whole trip.

Zoo Too

A few more pictures of Holly's day as a zoo keeper, these ones taken by Holly herself, up close and personal with the animals as she mucked them out and fed them. That's Holly's hand in the lemur picture, holding the pink cup...

There's also a short video of her "target training" a giant tortoise. It's something to do with mitigating stereotypic behaviours. Ask her about it...

Zoo Keeper For A Day

Holly's "big" Christmas present was a "Zoo Keeper For A Day" experience at the Five Sisters Zoo in deepest West Lothian, in the shadow of the eponymous bings.

The day's a combination of mucking out, feeding and target training (whatever that is) with a dose of petting thrown in. We caught up with her when she was feeding the Fennec Foxes, like all the animals she got right in their wee house with them and set out their lunch. She'd already done the goats and chickens, three kinds of lemurs, meerkats and cranes, and more besides.

As you might expect, she absolutely loved it.

For the occasion, I'd given her my old camera. She's taken a good few snaps and I'll add them in here just as soon as I figure out how to get them off the camera...

Kickabout

Louis fancied giving his Christmas Hearts top a test (thank you Lismores!), so we all popped along to D Mains Park for a festive kickabout. It was blummen cold but Louis played on, undeterred. Such is the power of the maillot maroon :-)

So This Is Christmas

A few snaps from the gathering of the Millars chez nous, starting with morning present opening and carol singing taken before (a) we sat down to dinner and (b) my camera battery ran out. All very jolly it was, even unphotographed.

Winter Wonderland

With a few days off work (and school) to enjoy before Christmas, we took ourselves off to Edinburgh's Christmas for a ride on the big wheel (courtesy of a competition at The List), the Star Flyer and others. We also went for a skate at Murrayfield, where Louis did his best Bambi impression but both regained their confidence on the ice very quickly. To cap it all we went to see Wicked at the Playhouse, we were up in the gods but it's a good show, and a cracking festive night out. Defying Gravity ain't Let It Go though :-)

Singing with John Lewis

Last choir gig of the year at Monty's Den in John Lewis, complete with festive jumpers.. Can it really be two years? We also did our third Christmas gig in the BT canteen:

Captivate Christmas

Tonight was Holly's drama group's "Concert at Christmas". They had a cast of thousands from what looked like pre-schoolers right up to bearded teenagers performing favourites from the musicals and a wee mob-handed nod to Christmas at the end. Holly appeared in excerpts from Matilda, Oliver and - yes! - Frozen among others, and performed with her usual smiling commitment and enthusiasm. One more performance tomorrow...

Normal for Norfolk

IMG_0845, a photo by Fraser Millar on Flickr.

Suitably rested over Christmas, we headed for rural North Norfolk, where we'd taken a house along with Paula and Dave, Kirsty and Peter, Catherine and Matt, and Christina and all our respective children. The weather was generally awful, but we had a lovely time, a constant cycle of preparing food, eating and drinking, and clearing up afterwards. Not many pictures mind you. We did manage to fit in a wee trip to Cromer (a coastal town they forgot to close down) and Holkham beach (very nice, but a bit cold and windy), as well as some local attractions - Wolterton Park and lunch in the Saracen's Head. Holly hasn't shrunk in the picture, by the way - that's Christina's wee girl Lily.

Christmas in Essex

DSC_1522, a photo by Fraser Millar on Flickr.

We came, we saw, we ate and drank more or less continuously. We met Santa on the little train at Audley End, we exchanged gifts, we played in the park. We saw Thumbelina at the Junction in Cambridge, we went running, we took Matty the dog for a walk. All very jolly and festive.

Merci Tout Le Monde

And so it came to pass that, after twelve days and nights had passed, the innkeeper chucked Mary and Joseph and their new baby out of the stable, saying "clear off, the Council will be round to pick up the decorations and wrapping paper tomorrow." And lo, Mary quoth unto our Lord "that reminds me, you should write some thank you cards." And verily, and in due course, the three wise men did receive cards thanking them for the gold, frankincense and myrrh, and the Lord needed a bit of help with the spelling because those are really quite tricky words. Much like Louis, really, except I'm sure Jesus didn't have an older sister prancing around distractingly in the background.

Pepparkaka Hus

DSC_8710, a photo by Fraser Millar on Flickr.

Holly began construction of her gingerbread house with Grandma & Grandad during the Christmas hols, but it took something of a back seat once school started again. Today she finished the job, sticking the chimney on top and meticulously sticking dozens of dolly mixtures and other confections onto the gently collapsing roof. She finished off with a few royal icing designs on the gable ends, and only a few short minutes expired before the whole shebang went under the knife, and was cruelly reduced to rubble as the kids shoveled gingerbread and dolly mixtures into their hungry maws.

Armpits, Ears and Bum Cheeks

DSC_8702, a photo by Fraser Millar on Flickr.

One of Holly's Christmas presents was a rather splendid science kit. Two weeks ago, we filled petri dishes with a substrate made from gelatin and sugar, and Holly took swabs from various parts of the family's anatomy. She was very methodical, and recorded the name, age, location and gender of each sample. The results speak for themselves, Louis' ear wins the bacteria competition, closely followed by grandma's armpit, with Holly's bum cheeks bringing up the - ahem - rear.

Happy New Year!

DSC_8530, a photo by Fraser Millar on Flickr.

Hogmanay saw the arrival of Catherine and Matt with Isabel and Sally for phase three of the festivities. We all met up with Dave & Paula for lunch at Pizza Express, then headed home to get ready for dinner with Pete, Anna, Leo and Nate. We fed the kids, then who should pop in for drinkies but Pat, John, Colin and Rosie. It was mob-handed, as these things should be. Us grownups stayed up well past our bedtimes for Cava in the garden at the bells. Next day, and surprisingly sprightly, we all gathered again for a nice brunch at the Cramond Brig and a stroll down the Almond, just the ticket to kick off the new year.