December & Christmas

Pretty & simple decorations in the village

December was a bit of a whirlwind!  I was mega busy with chocolates and cakes!  I got 'found' for my chocolate dipped oranges and as soon as I put a batch up on my website, the website would go crazy and they would sell out in hours!  Not only that, but when they bought those, they would look for other things and order from all over.  Not a complaint, I maintain my stock on the website as 4 items of everything available, they aren't necessarily made, but putting it at that level means I can quickly make them and send them off.  Well, normally anyway, maybe not when I am getting orders in the quantities that I was.  In the end I had to go through my website and put lots of things out of stock so I wouldn't get any nasty surprises.  One day I got 12 orders in a day, considering I normally get 1 or 2 a week you can understand how mad that was!

I had also taken on some cake orders in December, so it was very much a case of head down all day every day.  

I didn't get Covid from Deacon Blue, which was good.  However, for the last week of school, Tom had a horrible cold - he missed most of the week of school.  He got the flu jab at school the first week of December and felt a bit sick afterwards, he got sent home from school and wasn't allowed back until he had a PCR test result.  He was clear, it was just the effects of the flu jab.  Then he got this horrible cold, this was after him sitting next to a lad who had just tested positive for Covid so we were sure he had Covid this time.  Took him for a PCR test.  The next day, before Tom got his result, Matt couldn't taste his lunch, so he thought he had got Covid too and went for a PCR test.  Tom's result came back - negative, phew!  Matt's came back positive - we were shocked?!  How could that be?  They had gone to see a model railway the weekend before, but it was strange that one would have it and the other not.  Tom was a lot sicker with his cold than Matt with Covid.  I had to ban them both from my kitchen and Matt was sort of isolated.  Tom and I went for PCR tests to check - I had lots of chocolate to be picked up / sent off and needed to know that I was clear.  At least with the new rules I was allowed out and about as I am double vaccinated and had no symptoms.  It felt wrong though, so I only went out to post parcels and for shopping - felt wrong to socialise.  We both came back negative.   Then a day later, Tom's lateral flow test came back positive, so off he went again for another PCR but it came back negative.  He managed one half day at school that week - just as well it was the last week of term.  Once all my chocolates were finished we opened up the house and decided to mingle - if Tom and I got Covid now it wouldn't really matter and it would mean we would have it over and done with. It didn't happen, we didn't have it, however, I did get Tom's cold and it was a nasty one - took 2 weeks to feel normal again.

In the meantime, the Omicron variant of Covid was beginning to take hold in the UK and it looked likely that there might be a lockdown after Christmas, that plus a number of other factors meant that Mum and Dad decided not to come for Christmas, so we were back to being just the 3 of us.  We had a quiet run up to Christmas, Matt wasn't allowed to leave the house until the 23rd due to Covid isolation - he was lucky in that they reduced isolation from 10 to 7 days whilst he was isolating so he got out early.  We aren't all that sure if he had it anyway, his lateral flow tests were always negative?  

The weather was pretty grim too - we stayed in and watched films and did a very difficult 1000 piece jigsaw - never seen such small pieces before.  We all spent ages on it - and then discovered it was missing 1 piece - argggggghhhhhhh!  There were two nice days where Tom and I went for short walks.  We saw a steam train head across Ribblehead Viaduct completely by chance.  Was pretty cold - as you can see from the ice!

Oh I have never been so ill prepared for Christmas as this year, at one point it looked like it might be a damp squib, none of us had Christmas cheer, I didn't have food ordered, didn't have that many presents ready but somehow it all came together.  It was a little bit stressful though, next year I need to get myself prepared in September/October before Christmas orders come in.

Christmas Eve, Jude and Craig came to say hi, have lunch and drop off and pick up pressies.  I was so unprepared this year, that it only occurred to me as they were on their way over that maybe we should offer them some lunch?  Luckily I had bought lots of buffet food and was able to provide a decent spread that actually looked planned!  As you can see from the photo Tom has now comfortably outgrown Jude now.  He was very pleased!

In the afternoon we headed out to Morecambe as we heart that they had Christmas lights for the first time in a long while and also they were lighting up the old buildings on the front.  We got there a bit too early so did a walk up and down the prom, then drove back in, parked in the centre and saw the lights, they were so pretty.  We also bumped into the Radas again so spent a while with them before heading back home where a lamb rib stew was waiting for us.  

Christmas Day came, we invited Pat and Bob over for the day.  Only Bob came.  The day seemed to go really quickly, we seemed to spend most of the day trying to open presents, but kept being interrupted - for good reasons.  We spent over an hour with the Smyths in Australia which was fab, then we attempted a zoom call with Mum and Dad - they couldn't get the video to work so it wasn't as good as it could have been and then Bob arrived.  We had a Cornvale rib of beef:

220 degrees for 25 mins

140 degrees for 1.5 hours

It was delicious - the best rib we have ever had. 

Tom made the yorkies, we had red cabbage, parsnips, roast potatoes, broccoli, carrots and cauliflower as well as gravy.  It was a feast - we all ate well.  Tom drank through his non alcoholic wine and we were on the red. 

The rest of the day was spent not doing that much. I watched the snowman - my Christmas tradition and then we slobbed out for the rest of the day.

Considering it was a quiet one, we had a good day.

Thank you to everyone who gave us presents, we were spoiled once more.  Here's a picture of me in one of my pressies from Matt - I asked him for something to slob around the house in. This is what he came up - it's not flattering but oh it is so comfy and warm AND the stars light up at night - he didn't know that when he bought it for me - but how fun.  I love it!

Between Christmas and New Year we tried to get out and about to get some walks in.  On Boxing Day we headed over to Arnside - initially for a short walk, but somehow we found ourselves walking up to Arnside Knott - it was lovely just to get some fresh air together even if the weather wasn't great.  

We also headed over to Blackpool for an evening to see the illuminations.  We have been plenty of times before and enjoyed them, but they were a bit old, tired this year, lots were missing and many weren't working properly.  Such a shame, oh well never, mind it got us out and we ended up with fish and chips which is always a good thing and as you can see we saw the illuminations train which is always a good sight.

We also went to Snaizeholme to see the squirrels, who once again put on a good display for us. 

We also played countless games of Tom's new board game Wingspan.  It took us two days to fathom it out (the first time we got it out, we had to put it away again none the wiser) after watching a video on youtube we worked it out and got immediately hooked.  I have been lucky and won every game so far, but I'm sure that won't be the case for much longer.

Oh, forgot to mention, Tom is certainly becoming a teenager now.  He is getting a good 10+ hours sleep a night, doesn't wake up naturally until after 10am now.  I can't complain - I suffered terribly from being unable to get out of bed as a teenager and given a chance will still lie-in.