Christmas medley

Sorry if I'm out of date posting Christmas pics.  These are some photos of Dad playing the piano for carols on the Friday before Christmas. It was a great success - loads of people, enthusiastic singing, lots of village love. Because the pub carol singing is only a new tradition in Coleby I had to work quite hard to make it work and make sure Dad had a good evening.

Making sure people had a songsheet, knew what song we were on, when we were starting, how many verses, singing loud and just generally prancing around keeping it all going. Dad was a star. He didn't want to drink before he played so for the hour before he started he warmed up with Scott Joplin and classical numbers and so many people commented how lovely it was to listen to.

We had more carolling the following evening in our local back in Bradwell. I was a bit tired after the Christmas preparations so didn't get into it as much as usual but still enjoyed the atmosphere and the crowd.

So then to Christmas Day. We did some prep and then took the girls out for a festive walk round the village. It was lovely to meet people and chat and the dogs loved their Christmas outfits (sort of).

We ended up in the pub for a couple and met up with some pals for the annual new jumper parade.

Christmas lunch was lovely, but was also, to be honest, probably my worst ever Christmas meal. I just couldn't seem to concentrate so forgot things and overcooked veg (which I think is heinous). Overall it was still pleasant to eat but I could see the cracks. But that is the beauty of family - they still love you and enjoy themselves! 

Always nice though to lounge about with the dogs watching Christmas telly so a below par meal was easily forgotten.

On Boxing Day we enjoyed the true spirit of Christmas which is not carols, food, family or festive television but football! The league excelled itself and gave us a rubbish draw for the crucial Boxing Day fixture - away to Newcastle for a 7.45pm kick off which was televised. Gah! I have good friends in Newcastle and was looking forward to making a weekend of it but you can't really do that on Boxing Day!

No worries - we decided to make the best of it and wangled 3 spots on a coach which starts a mile down the road from us so could pick us up from the door. It was an early start - 11am for a 7.45 KO!

A nice comfy double decker coach with lots of room. A bright sunny day- so what do we do? 4 hours in a pub in South Shields of course! It was brilliant - a good natter, banter with the locals, a nice long chat about Australia with a Sunderland fan and I snuck off for a short walk along the beach. My, that was, erm brisk. 

Next up, we're off to St James' Park for the match. They sit away fans high up in the Gods so we had 8 floors to climb before we even reached row A and we were on row S! Good for the Fitbit I suppose. But there's not much atmosphere as you  are so far from the action. It's like watching Subbuteo. 

We were not optimistic as Wednesday has been hit and miss this season and Newcastle were top of the League.  So a great performance and a win was VERY pleasing. We sang our little hearts out and had a great evening. A late return home at 1.30am though so the win was good - would've been miserable if we'd played badly and lost.

This morning dawned bright and we had to race around to get up to Longshaw Estate in time to meet up with Rich's family for a walk with kids and dogs.  We got the last parking space (yay!) and headed out onto the hills for some welcome fresh air. We had a lovely walk and some much needed exercise.

So there you have it - our Derbyshire Christmas. It's been lovely. The house is full of tasty calorific goodies but dieting and exercise is not far away and I don't begrudge loosening up a bit for a few days. I'm in better shape to get started again than I was a couple of months ago. Hope you have all had a great time too.