Keeping a Straight Face

Ok you try keeping a straight face when you have to call a ship called the WILLY!!!

Aftermath

Well the little bit of Christmas I did get to celebrate was very nice. The day actually went quite quickly. I wore my Santa hat all day and it kept my head nice and warm. I cooked a full english breakfast for us both about 10.30, we had a visit from the Harbourmaster bearing a Christmas Cake for the troops and we moved about 5 ships in total (so I couldn't sing I Saw Three Ships go Sailing by!!)

I got home about 6pm and the house was filled with the smell of Christmas dinner well under way. The fire was lit in the living room and I was handed a glass of champagne and orange juice as I walked through the door so it was a very nice home coming.

We had a lovely traditional dinner but were too full for the cheesecake I had spent ages making on Christmas Eve. After dinner we exchanged presents with Noel's mum and dad, then my Mum and Wayne arrived and we did more pressies. Meurig also arrived and there were yet more presents, so all in all we did pretty well. I had Ray Gravell's autobiography from my Mum which I shall really enjoy reading (and having a little cry about). She also got me the Doctor Who Almanac which I will study in great depth and a toilet bag of lovely Sanctuary stuff. Meurig got me a bottle of Cointreau and I had a bottle garden from Noel's mum and dad. Erin got me a huge bag of smellies and bath stuff and a Doctor Who DVD (The Five Doctors) and Ffion got me the Stephen Fry America book, so I have plenty of reading material.

Eventually everyone left and we spent the rest of the evening having a quiet glass of wine and watching the totally crap evening of TV before crashing out fairly early.

Today was back to work and again its been fairly quite. I did another cooked breakfast for Brian (Noel was making whinging noises about how I never make him cooked breakfast) and we have spent the rest of the day stuffing our faces with all the goodies his wife Wendy sent in with him, including Rocky Road, homemade mince pies, coconut macaroons and homemade Christmas cake. I now feel so stuffed I'm not sure I want any tea when I get home!!

Just Another Day

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you are all having a lovely day with your families, stuffing yourselves with choccies and drinking plenty of alcohol (well maybe not the alcohol for Ellie... but the rest of you!).

I unfortunately am stuck in work for the second year running, and it just feels like any other working day except I had choccies for breakfast which is the normal thing to do on Christmas Day. Some kind soul put a tub of Terry's Chocolate Orange segments up here and I have been dipping into it quite a bit.

It was a very early start in Chez Smith this morning. The girls had been given the choice of opening their presents Christmas Eve, getting up at 5am to do it before I came to work or waiting till I got home at 6pm this evening. They chose 5am so it was a very bleary eyed family that gathered on the bed this morning to open the stockings.

We then proceeded downstairs to do the main present opening which took somewhere in the region of 30 minutes to complete... and hey presto Christmas was over with!!

Despite agreeing with Noel that we wouldn't go and buy each other big expensive presents this year the bugger still went out and bought me some gorgeous jewelry

This lovely Clogau Gold necklace which is pearls and blue topaz and the matching earrings. I was very very pleased they are gorgeous

I also had books, dvds and a Tardis keyring from Ffion which I am very chuffed with!

Ian and I are having a relatively quiet Christmas day work wise. I cooked a full english breakfast for us both at about 10am and we have just had some homemade profitar rolls made by Ian's partner Bev, but I am saving myself for my Christmas dinner when I get home, prepared by Noel's Mum and Dad with some help from the girls no doubt.

My Mum is coming over later tonight and I am going to have a couple of glasses of wine, but not too many as I am back in work again tomorrow. Roll on next year when I can have a normal Christmas again.

Once again hope you are all having a lovely one. Happy Christmas everyone xxx

Because JoJo is Nosey

Last night we went to the Druidston for Noel's Christmas "Do". Not really party time because there were only four of us. But it was a very nice meal and the place had been decorated really nicely and looked very festive . There were the two of us, Julian (the other joiner) and Nathan (the apprentice). Now for the culinary bit. I had chorizo and tomato bruchetta, follwed by best end of lamb with caramalised onion mash, followed by warm chocolate brownie with double chocolate ice-cream... and very nice it all was too.

Today and for the next two days I am going to be busy preparing for a Christmas Day I going to spend working!!. I have presents to wrap, presents yet to buy, food to shop for and preparations to do so that my Mother in Law can cook Christmas dinner for when I get home from work.

We decided this morning to change our bedroom around, as an experiment to see if it would be more practical. We have always had the bed under the window but, we decided to move it to the other corner of the room, if this layout works we will be able to put a flat screen TV on the wall at the bottom of the bed, when we finally get round to decorating and building wardrobes, hopefully next year sometime.

I just happend to mention this to JoJo this morning and she insisted I post pictures...so here you go.

The bed used to be under the window and the chest of drawers where the bed is now.

We are hoping to build built in wardrobes where the hanging rails are now and behind the wall with the radiator is the en-suite. The cats are optional.

Hammered

We were well and truely hammered at Pub Quiz last night.

Our time finally came to play the mighty Sir Charles Whetham (with one team member, who legend has it once appeared on MasterMind!!).

It was a humiliating experience. Mind you saying that we lost 98 v 67 and other teams have been beaten with over 100 so maybe we didn't do that bad.

We were at a distinct disadvantage in one round which was "Local Knowledge" and comprised questions on what some of the roads around Neyland were known as by the locals. Seeing as Ianto and Myfanwy are from Nottingham and have only lived here 8 months and I didn't grow up in the Neyland area then we were slightly handicapped.

Blodwyn continued to know all the answers after they had been given but did pull some obscure facts from somewhere to help out a bit. We did have quite a good laugh though, mostly at the expense of the guy who had set the questions and is obviously well known on the pub quiz circuit as being a "bit of a dick"!!

No quiz now till 7th January, but hopefully we can pull some games back in the New Year.

Secret Santa

Today was Secret Santa at work. It is mostly for the office staff but I always put my name in for old times sake as it is a chance to see everyone and have a bit of laugh, get a pressie and have a mince pie!!

This is me on Santa's lap getting my pressie this morning. It was a lovely print of Martha's Vineyard, which is the pub we usually go to on the Marina, so it was quite apt really. I also enjoyed my TWO mince pies!!

My Babies

It's not often I get a chance to show off my babies but tonight they all gathered in the kitchen at the same time, mistakenly thinking it was "DINNER TIME". Dinner time is that time of night (usually 9pm) when Noel feeds them all and they all come running and wait expectantly for him to fill their bowls in the garage.

Anyway tonight they got their little body clocks wrong and were all in the kitchen about 7.30pm so I took these photos.


Skittles.. the little girly tart

Chicken .. the boss cat and grumpy old man.

Henry... the handsome one.

Nugget... the gay one!

And finally all my babies together.