December
After
over 20 years we pensioned off our main TV and replaced it with a flat screen
model (see right), easily visible for everyone in the room, but the slim-line
design means speakers the size of teaspoons and a rather tinny sound. The old one continues to give sonorous
service in the bedroom.
The
month was largely taken up with preparations for, and celebration of, the
Christmas holiday. Otherwise our routine
was disturbed only by each of us in turn suffering a nasty cold – Teresa just before
Christmas, Roger at Christmas, Juliet just after Christmas and Helen for the
New Year, the worst symptom being a very sore throat and persistent cough. As a result, one or two of Teresa’s
traditional activities had to be foregone for the year – for example the local
carol services and The Messiah in
|
Teresa’s
preparations had started, as ever, much earlier in the year, mostly by
internet shopping, and much of it to be revealed only on the day. One
of the first tangible tasks, on Saturday 3, was to get the Christmas tree
from a local farm – once again a very fresh specimen which scarcely shed a
needle even by Twelfth Night. The tree, below, with
decorations and presents |
Teresa and Jay also
attended the late night Christmas shopping evening in Broadway on Friday 2. Below - Christmas
lights in Broadway |
|
|
|
|
Christmas
cards started to arrive in the post, though our lists have thinned out in
recent years. And some arrived by hand
– no prizes for guessing to whom and from whom the special delivery below: |
And Teresa received some
generous presents from her friends and family, for example the lovely
bouquets below: |
|
|
|
|
Teresa again brilliantly
pulled off the task of preparing and presenting the Christmas meals – as
usual a Beef Wellington on Christmas Eve and turkey on Christmas Day, with a
modicum of help from the girls. Below left – some of the
ingredients prepared for the oven, and, below right, the finished meal on the
plate: |
|
|
|
|
|
After the meal on Christmas Day, a long succession
of presents emerged from under the tree, too numerous to mention individually,
but all well chosen by Teresa and the girls.
Among them was this framed embroidery, painstakingly stitched by
Helen, which now sits on Roger’s desk; it is, of course, appropriately,
Sherlock Holmes, as played by Benedict Cumberbatch (see right) |
|
|
On Boxing Day we played
some Christmas games, including the ‘Who Am I?’ guessing game, won by Helen
by a short head, and a new board game called ‘Ticket To Ride’, the object for
each player being to put together a set of trains to complete routes across
North America. It seemed very
appropriate this year after Teresa and Helen’s epic summer journey, and it
proved to be a great hit, providing elements of strategy and tactics to
maintain the players’ interest throughout the game, which lasts up to 90
minutes, combined with some interventions of good luck or outrageous
disaster, while also providing a sense of achievement even for the losing
players. It seems we were not the only
people to take to it: in trying to
upgrade the game after Christmas, Teresa found most outlets had actually sold
out. |
|
|
Below – ‘Who Am I?’
|
Below – we play ‘Ticket
To Ride’
|
|
Helen had returned
London by New Year’s Eve, so we again time-shifted our very low key
celebration. I think we shared the
run-up with the good people of Right – Roger and Juliet
prepare to welcome the dawn |
|
