Bob & Betty go British

Welcome to 2007

Well, it didn't snow. I did manage to spot some snowy looking frost and there was a lot of fog around, but alas, no snow. Still, Christmas was nice and relaxing spent in front of the fire and eating our fill of Christmas foods - Christmas cake, mince pies, belgian chocolates, nuts, baclava, cheese, and anything else we could get our hands on. Of course all that sitting around in front of the fire gave me the perfect opportunity to do lots of knitting. I finished knitting the front of my vest but forgot to take the right needles to finish the ribbed edges. Luckily I had a 2nd sock project with me to get on with.

The Thursday night before Christmas we went to Robert's work Christmas party at the Park Lane hotel. It was very swish. All the girls were given white feather boas and all the boys got a black ganster style hat. We also got fancy bonbons, a fantastic meal and live entertainment! We bailed out at midnight once the DJ started playing loud retro music (I know, we're such old party poopers).

We picked up our hire car on Friday and got upgraded from a Ford Focus to a Toyota Prius because they didn't record the fact that we wanted to pick up the car a day earlier than originally booked. The prius was interesting and a novelty to start with but it was really rather frustrating for Robert. It's not a drivers car. Still it got us from A to B sucessfully.

Our stay with Mark and Vega was great. We went walking in the Lake District, we got to meet family we didn't know we had, we went for drives in the country side and saw old houses and we ate and drank. We went to village parties and got to meet the other people in the village Mark and Vega live in. We went to local pubs for meals and did a spot of shopping (I have to confess to buying a pair of victorian stle lace up boots). We also took a quick trip into Scotland for a day.


Christmas day was very relaxed. We had drinks with the neighbours and cooked up a storm - roast pork, roast chicken, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, brussell sprouts (with proscuto and chesnust) and mash potatoes. Alas we didn't have room for the Christmas Pudding (we saved that for later in the week). With no presents to clutter the day it was all very laid back. Ok, so we did get a couple of things - a Rick Stein cookbook (because Mark and Vega got it as a present and they already had it) and Aunty Angie and Uncle Fred gave us some things they picked up in Hong Kong.

The weather on New Year's Eve was wild and woolly and we weren't sure whether we'd get our dinner cooked before the lights went out. Luckily the electricity stayed connected and we saw the new year in playing scrabble and pictionary.

Unfortunately we had to head back to London on New Year's Day. I tried to work out how we could relocate our lives and live in the country. We managed to squeeze Fred and Angie along with their luggage into the Prius for the long drive. Aside from a couple of accidents where trucks had been blown over on the motorway the previous night, we had a problem-free trip home. I'm not sure where all the people were, but it was certainly a quicker trip home than it was on the way up north.

So this week we're back at work. We both took Tuesday off so we could spend the day with Angie and Fred before they headed back to Hong Kong that afternoon. We went to the Victoria & Albert Museum and then stopped for a spot of shopping on the way home. They headed off to the airport and we went off to the supermarket to restock our cupboard.

So the next trip is to Switzerland at the end of January to go skiing. We've been told by a friend who went last week that there is snow so hopefully they'll get more between now and when we arrive. I just hope our ski clothes are warm enough. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

posted by Elisabeth @ 9:12 PM