Alone and together at Christmas

Happy Christmas to all my blipfriends!

For the first time ever in 35 years Mr hazelh and I woke up alone in our own flat on Christmas Day. Although we missed the traditional noisy hubbub of our families this morning, we also relished the peace and quiet. In addition, it has been wonderful to be in control of the proceedings, especially the cooking. My blip shows Mr hazelh opening my present to him.

We didn't spend the whole day by ourselves: Katharine, Jack and Jon joined us for lunch (which lasted for over 4 hours with breaks between courses in the sitting room), and we were also on and off the phone to our families in Nottingham, West Sussex, and Northumberland multiple times over the course of the day.

The funniest interaction was over FaceTime with my family on Holy Island. My first extra captures the chaos of the conversation. On the back row are Mummy hazelh, my not-so-little sister, Ailish (my niece), Caitlin (my nephew's girlfriend), and Paddy (my nephew). My brother-in-law, Garfield, and middle sister are at the front. The rest of us in Edinburgh can almost be seen in the bottom right hand corner of this shot. If you look very carefully, you can also see that my Recovery Moomin has photobombed the first extra!

The second extra shows the five of us at the kitchen table in Edinburgh just about to start our Christmas dinner.

(Health update - still coughing and croaky, but my own voice is returning at last. I am looking forward to finally banishing the Dalek that has taken up residence in my throat over the past few days.)

Exercise today: none.