Nativity with additional okapi

I put up the Nativity scene today, after I'd done the the hard work of finishing the latest jigsaw. (That one had only taken me a week, because I've been on holiday).

Poor Baby Jesus had an accident a few years ago and his face still bears the scars. The paper okapi is there because my sister TML once sent me a book on how to make a cardboard jungle...you know about the rest of the cast.

I did at last have my free day today, having disposed of the chores earlier in the day. I put on the world service while jigsaw-ing, and heard a programme about music from the former Ottoman empire, which inspired me to text my brother in Greece. Then I changed channels to BBC Asian network. My father often used to play music from the Indian subcontinent when he lived with us in Ireland, and I wished I'd taken down the names of some of the tracks. But I was only a child at the time. My mother adores classical music and sacred music, and she plays treble recorder (not the really squeaky 'three blind mice' one, that's a descant) but it's fair to say that my musical tastes are closer to my father's.

Anyway, all good memory-laning! I thought of my siblings and their families, so scattered across the globe, and my mother in Scotland. I've been in touch with two of them today. Tomorrow I'll catch up with all the others.

Merry Christmas across the world, to blippers far and near.