Countdown to Christmas

Saturday 20 December

Christmas celebrations start here! But first, my job was to try and dye Ella’s hair back to

a slightly more subtle tone. In the middle of all this - a call came in from my sister Linus who was at yet another Christmas gig in London with the CdP Ladies - I think this was the Old Dirty Brasstards with their rendition of a Christmas 70s classic by Slade or Wizard or similar!

Then a bunch of friends came over to their place to work on the big declutter ahead of putting the house on the market in January. Meanwhile, I took on Christmas BBQ clearing, cleaning & prep and Louis had a peaceful morning in Banjo working on music & social media videos. Suddenly it was nearly party time so I whizzed back to Banjo to frock up and to pick up Louis.

We spent a lovely afternoon and evening with many of Ella & Josh’s friends - eating, chatting and playing games (Secret Hitler and Flip7). I successfully mounted a Fascist coup by being elected as Chancellor whilst secretly being Hitler but was less successful at Flip7 - expecially when Arthur took over the dealing (there might have been the slightest bit of sneaky peeking at the cards!!!) His sister Isla, meanwhile, was having a lovely time blowing raspberry farts down a wrapping paper inner tube into everyone's ears... love it when kids create their own fun!

It was such a beautiful day that Louis and I took a stroll down to the beach - it was pretty quiet down there with some funky storm clouds which rumbled ominously with thunder and dropped rain and hail around the area at several points in the afternoon.

Eventually pretty much everyone had been and gone, with just a late drop in by Tess and Matt and their kids, so after receiving our instructions for dog & house sitting, we said our farewells and headed back to Banjo for the night and an early morning alarm. We will have to ask Jessie & Shadow about the instructions as they were listening far more intently to Josh than we were!!!

What a fab day!