Not the shortest Day!

Weren't we lucky to have managed to change our Botanics Lights visit to last night. I had an email today to say that tonight's event was cancelled due to the weather(presumably their list wasn't fully up to date). We would really have struggled to find an evening going forwards from now when both Katy and Jon were both off, yesterday and today were it apart from Christmas Day!
I had a dreadful night of cramp last night, the fronts of my shins were the affected areas, blooming uncomfortable and there's nothing to stretch or ease to make it better. I ended up with socks on and the electric blanket too as I find being cold makes it worse!
When I woke this morning I headed off on the bus to George Street and then John Lewis to pick some things up. The weather was still ok and I I was home by 11am. My next task was to decorate the tree, cluttered and tinsillated as ever, I don't do restrained. As Anna commented recently, on closer inspection it was clear that the tree had been quite severely pruned, it was a lot less bushy than usual. As a result, a lot of decorations didn't make it out of the box! The old favourites with my family history attached are there though.
By the time we went out this afternoon the house was looking a whole lot more festive.
This evening we had what would have been the second part of our celebrations with Kathryn and family. It's her birthday tomorrow so the Botanics event, followed by a meal at Cafe Andaluz had been planned. Thanks to the weather we had a change of plan though so today we had the meal. It's such a good place to go with children, 7.95 for children's main first and starter. The rest of us cost rather more, but we had a lovely time. The staff had overheard us talking about birthdays and to our delight with no prompting came out with this dish of ice cream for her, singing as they presented it. It's been nice to have extended celebrations, the actual birthday is tomorrow and the celebrations will continue.
With a birthday on the 22nd, I can assure you that on the year she arrived, the 21st was definitely not the shortest day, lol. She didn't put in an appearance until lunchtime on the 22nd having been making a fuss since 5 am on the 21st!

It's a stormy night tonight, hopefully my cramp won't put in an appearance again. Stay safe out there everyone