Sunday December 31st - Promises, promises...

This year's resolutions might not have gone as well as in previous years -

I do have an entry for every page in my journal, although there were a couple of sticky patches when I found my self trying to write up a whole week in one go. That's what I call a memory test.

I did eat chocolate every week. At least, I didn't keep a record, but I can't imagine a week without chocolate, so it must have happened.

It's the "two bags of stuff to the charity shop every month" resolution that I'm not sure of. A plastic tub sat in the hall collection stuff for months, before I finally managed to get round to dumping donating it all to a randomcharity shop. So I might have managed it, but probably not.

 



Still, they are good, workable resolutions, so I will stick with them for another year. saves me cudgelling my brain to come up with something different. 

I'll retrieve the tub from the shed, where all the extraneous clobber has ended up over Christmas/NewYear, and make a start on filling tomorrow. Or the next day. Sometime soon.

 

Sunday December 31st - Diaries

You may have been wondering why I haven't posted for a week? Or maybe you haven't noticed!

The clue is in the name of the blog; "A letter from home". Well, they've been staying here from Christmas Eve until New Year's Day, so there wasn't much point in writing "letters" to them...

My new diary arrived today - Sunday! Just in time for tomorrow. I waited to order it in case anyone had given me a diary for Christmas - a risky undertaking, because I am very specific, except in the matter of colour.  And here it is;

This year's colour is............................................red!

It will seem weird, starting all over again in an empty book. I think this will be the fifth year....

Well, Happy New Year, everyone, and best wishes for 2018

#Pause for Advent 4

Recap of previous weeks; I'm reading Luke's Gospel "backwards" through Advent. In week 1, I started at the Resurrection of Christ. In week 2, I gathered my strength and tackled the Passion of Christ, which is dealt with mercifully concisely in the King James Version of the gospel. This week was all about the Ministry of Christ, from being Baptised by John the Baptist as far as just before the Passover Meal. That is from Chapter 2 to Chapter 19. Jesus certainly had a busy busy busy three years. I found a map showing the places he visited here

If you want to get a sense of scale, the Sea of Galillee is about 13 miles long.

Towards the end of Chapter 19, Jesus is talking about the Second Coming;

"Don’t let the sharp edge of your expectation get dulled by parties and drinking and shopping. Otherwise, that Day is going to take you by complete surprise" (from "The Message" by Eugene H. Peterson)

It struck me that is exactly how Christmas Day sometimes arrives all of a sudden, with all the sense of awe and expectation lost amid the chaos and scheduling of getting ready.

So, here is this week's #Pause - I will be reading the first few Chapters tonight, concerning the Birth of Christ. I may well go back to the old King James, for the familiar, traditional words...

and then I might listen again to O Magnum Mysterium composed by Morten Lauridsen

O magnum mysterium, et admirabile sacramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, lacentem in praesepio!
Beata Virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum lesum Christum.
Allelluia!

O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the new-born Lord, lying in a manger!
Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy to bear our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Allelliua!


and then I might imagine myself to be this child... as related by Stephen Cottrell in his book From "Do Nothing; Christmas is Coming: An Advent Calendar with a Difference"

December 24

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nativity_scene_@_Eglise_Notre-Dame_de_Lorette_@_Paris_(31523272300).jpg

"One of my best Christmas memories is from the church in Chichester where I was the parish priest. Because the building was so small, and because every other available inch of space was needed for chairs, we used to put the crib underneath the altar. One Christmas morning, about halfway through the service, a little girl, Miriam, toddled up to the front of the church. She can only have been about two or three at the time. For several minutes she stood before the crib, gazing intently at the figures. Then, very carefully, so as not to wake the baby, she stepped inside and sat down. And as people looked at the crib that Christmas, as well as the shepherds and the angels and the ox and the ass, and Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, they saw Miriam. She sat there for the rest of the service, content to have become part of the story. She was the best Christmas sermon I have ever experienced. I think this is also the best example I can muster of the how to get ready for Christmas this year." 

The other bloggers contributing to #Pause for Advent can be found at Tracing Rainbows. Many  thanks to Angela for hosting the #Pauses.

Saturday 23rd December - Christmas Eve's Eve

I'm having to do two posts today just so that I can use the phrase "Christmas Eve's Eve".

An oddly quiet day in some ways - I haven't left the house, apart from swapping the bright white lights on the outside tree to replace them with coloured ones, so that I could use the white ones inside. It isn't easy to take a picture of the tree at this time of night. Here is it without flash

and with flash

You either get the lights or the tree in my photographs. You'll have to merge them in your mind.
I've put the bright white lights inside a pickle jar to make a table decoration

I hoovered the whole house, bit by bit. Himself is on light duties, pending a minor op, so the hoovering was down to me. I find it is one of the quickest way for me to get completely out of breath, so I took my time, doing a room, pausing for a cup of tea, doing another room, another cup of tea...

And we managed between us to get the cards up. We usually string them up at ceiling level, but lots of things are different this year. At the beginning of the week getting ready for Christmas seemed an impossible feat, but now - everything has been checked off the list apart from four emails, washing the kitchen floor and delivering a couple of presents. And there's still one more day before Christmas!

I've finished the little bit of Christmas sewing I wanted to get done - last year it was frantic Advent Calendar Completing in time for 1st December. This year it is a little surprise for Christmas Day. I've also made a sort of "cat's duvet" from various scraps of fabric left over from other projects, which has helped the "Upstairs Cat" spend more time downstairs this Winter. 

It's nearly bedtime for us. As soon as James May has finished trying to follow the instructions for making some stilts, from a vintage "Ladybird" book, we're off.



Oh, and the Jamie Oliver Crazy Fish Pie was worth making.

Saturday 23rd December - Catch up, catch my breath

Have I really not posted since Monday morning?

So it seems...

Monday - Dentist experience relatively OK - no drillin'n'fillin, but what my son describes as "an industrial strength clean". So that was ok, home for lunch, which I as able to eat (not always the case after the dentist!) and off shopping for - can't remember. Non perishables, I guess. Mega present-wrapping.

Tuesday; Unexpected phone call; could I play for a carol service tomorrow morning for the residents of a local home?.... Thinks hard, yes, I can just fit it. Shopping at school. Off to school in the afternoon for the Dress Rehearsal at the church for the School Nativity tomorrow. Several unplanned additions to the carols from the keyboard I play - sudden loud drum beats, or change of instrument. Hope it doesn't do that tomorrow. More present-wrapping.

Wednesday; frantic last minute practice of songs for the Nativity. I can do the carols; it's the jazzy up-tempo numbers that I find taxing. The zip round to play some carols at the Home - not too many "bonus notes" today. Back to the school, and with the keyboard precariously balanced across the choir stall ends, and my music surreptitiously propped up on a handy flower display I get through the songs and carols without any "surprises" from the keyboard.



(Memo to self - must watch "Flint Street Nativity" again to compare notes...)

Home, change, snooze even, before off out again for end-of-term meal. To my horror, the others all arrive (after me - I was early) Bearing Gifts! We are doing a Secret Santa! All gifts to cost no more than £1; and I remember that I spent the whole day trying to squeeze in time to drop off a bag of stuff at the charity shop. So I rummage in the boot, find something possible, wrap it in a napkin tied with string from behind the bar. Phew. That was lucky. It was at least as good as the inflatable reindeer, or the canned snow, and other presents to choose from. 

Thursday; TERM HAS FINISHED!!!!! NO MORE SCHOOL!!!! When I eventually woke up, I zombied into town and bought vegetables and spent the afternoon wrapping some more presents. Which had fortunately arrived for me to give them to the recipients when we met up in the evening.

Friday; Turkey-Lurkey day. We woke far too early, made tea and toast for us both at about 4:30 am (Yes. True.) Then rolled over and went back to sleep until 10:30. Oh no! Turkey-Lurkey day! Up, breakfasted, dressed, in the car and in the shop in record time. Brought everything home, and somehow managed to get it all into the fridge. Except the box full of stuff in the shed....

Cooked supper for us two and the Grand Old Man. Excellent.

That was my week - full tilt until just now. I'm just about to have a go at Jamie Oliver's Crazy Simple Fish Pie. (Didn't like the chipolatas with apples and onions - too sweet.)

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jamie-oliver-crazy-simple-fish-pie-ng3htpq7l

Monday 18th December - a moment of happy happy

Just look at all these pictures. Don't argue with me, just go and look.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-42370195?SThisFB