Christmas

We had a lovely Christmas day with Will's parents. His mum had prepared a sumptuous Christmas feast of turkey with all the trimmings, followed by homemade Christmas pud which was doused in brandy and lit, and brandy butter. It really was a superb meal. Once we were well and truly stuffed we retired to the living room for the Queen's speech. It is a tradition in their household that no presents are opened until Lizzie has said her piece. I got very spoilt by Santa this year with lots of lovely things.

Before it got dark Will and his mum and I did a circuit of the grounds for a bit of fresh air and exercise, before settling in and watching lots of Christmas TV, and in particular, lots of Wallace and Grommit! A meal of Christmas dinner leftovers in the evening, more TV, a bit of cards, and then it was time for bed.

Boxing day was similarly relaxed with a leisurely start, more games, more TV, and more leftover turkey! We drove back home late afternoon.

On Saturday Will and I spent a day in town trawling through the sales. We picked up some incredible bargains. Will found a gorgeous navy blue cashmere V-neck pullover from a Saville Row designer that was £197 reduced to £37! I picked up a dress for our New Year's Eve party which was under half-price. However our favourite purchase was a Sony Bravia 40" flat-screen TV which is very very cool. We had been thinking of getting one for a while but thought we'd wait for the sales and see what we could find.

That's about it for news. This whole Christmas period has been very social, and we've managed to catch up with quite a few people. A couple of night before Christmas we had a great night with Annabel at Steve & Kate's. It started of with an impromptu invite for dinner, and ended up being a silly night filled with cocktails, a game of articulate, karaoke, & finished at around 2am! Last night we had dinner at Scottie and Sarah's which was another lovely evening, and slightly more sensible than Steve and Kate's! On New Year's Eve we have a formal cocktail party at the Penlington's which should be good fun.

Just before I go, a note about the weather. I hope those of you on the other side of the world are making the most of the sunshine because it is FREEZING here! There is no snow around, but the high today is zero degrees, with a low of -4. I went to the gym at 1pm yesterday and had to de-ice the car!

Cottage Break

Will & I had a lovely 4 nights away in our cosy little cottage. It was just out of a little town called Evesham, not too far from Stratford-upon-Avon. It was a really cute little place with a nice little garden out back. It is a converted dairy, hence the cheese press we had in our bedroom!

We had nice lazy mornings, then spent the first couple of days exploring Evesham & Stratford, including checking out Shakespeare's place of birth. There were some very nice Christmas lights around.
The next day we spent at Warwick castle, which was VERY cool! My favourite bit was a falconry exhibition with a huge golden eagle and a harris hawk.

The castle was great fun, if a bit 'theme-park' like at times. It was stuffed full of wax mannequins, which isn't surprising considering it's owned by the same people who own Madame Tussards. We particularly enjoyed walking up on the ramparts. There was also a 'Christmas tree forest' made up of all sorts of different varieties of Christmas tree.

Christmas Holidays

I finally made it to the end of term. It was lovely having a nice long lie-in on Thursday morning, then that night was our staff Christmas do at the Walters. It was a really nice night, with excellent food. The pub is under new management, & they have improved the food hugely. It is now a really nice place to go for a meal.

On Friday, after another very lazy morning, I headed to Reading for a bit of Christmas shopping. Town was a lot quieter than I expected it to be. I suppose most people are still working, & no other school in the area broke up as early as we did.

On Saturday night Will & I went to Wendy & Allan's evening wedding function which was held in the picture gallery at school. Wendy is the only English maths teacher in our department! It was a nice evening, but we didn't have that big a night, & were home at a respectable hour. Funnily enough, Allan actually attended Bearwood College as a student!

Tonight Annie, the GAP student flew back to OZ. Will & I had her round for dinner, then Ric arrived to drive her to Heathrow. I tagged along for the ride as well. She has had a great year at Bearwood, & I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know her throughout the year. She is a top chick. We have new gappies arriving at the start of January ready for the new term.

Tomorrow I have my knee appointment at the hospital at 10:15am. Will & I will then head straight off to our cottage near Stratford-upon-Avon for 4 nights. We'll call in on Will's parents as it is on the way.

Fat Freddy's and Flu

I arrived home from my boarding duty on Thursday night to find one very ill husband. He had been hit hard by a bug/virus of some kind and was really feeling rough. He had Friday off work, so obviously wasn't in any state to come watch Fat Freddy's Drop play at the Camden Roundhouse Friday night. Instead my mate Curto came with me. It was a great show, well worth seeing. They really are just too cool for school... The only problem is that their tracks last FOREVER. They had played for well over 2 hours when 11pm rolled around, so we decided to miss the encore & make a move, in case we missed the last train home. It turned out to be a brilliant decision, as we made the last train leaving Waterloo with about 1 minute to spare! If we had missed it it would have meant a long trek across London to Paddington, & trains from there didn't stop at the station where we had parked the car.

Unfortunately I woke up on Saturday feeling like death, & I hadn't even drank anything the previous night to blame it on! Will & I both spent all of Saturday & Sunday in bed feeling miserable, & I also had yesterday off school. My first sick day in about 4 or 5 years! I managed to go in today & survived the whole day, but I'm pretty shattered. I'm planning on a very early night tonight. Tomorrow is my last day of school, but it is a killer! We've got normal lessons before lunch, followed by my normal games which is rugby house matches tomorrow, so I'll only have to watch & maybe run a touchline. We then have a final headmasters assembly for the term at 4:30pm for an hour or so. That is followed by Christmas dinner in the dining room for all of the senior school. Turkey with all the trimmings, it's usually a good feed. We then leave the dining hall & go straight to the chapel for a candlelit carol service. At about 8:30pm we finally get to go home & are officially on holiday! Actually, that's not quite true. We then head to the common room for the official farewells to those leaving. There are only a handful, including Annie the Aussie gappie who is heading home after her year at Bearwood. We'll miss you Annie, you're a legend! A few quiet drinks later & it's holiday time. 3 & a half weeks off, bring it on!!! Thursday night we have our official staff Christmas dinner/party at our local, The Walters Arms.

The Kooks

Last night I went to the Kooks gig at the Camden Roundhouse in London with Will, Steve, Annabel & Willem. They put on a great show, playing for an hour & a half. We saw them in Reading about a year ago, but this time was better. Their light show was amazing, & they also exploded fireworks filled with confetti. Near the end they released a huge net of various sized white balloons from the ceiling which the crowd had a great time playing with. Will managed to take a few pics on his mobile phone. It was my first time at the Roundhouse, & it's an awesome venue. In fact it is so good that we went to the box office & bought some tickets to go back there on Friday to see Fat Freddy's Drop playing there. Am really looking forward to it! We are both pretty shattered now though, as we didn't get home till around 1:30am. Will is already in bed, & I am on my way...

Cowboy night!

On Friday night my rugby team had their Christmas party at Old Orleans, a restaurant in Reading. As you can tell from above, the theme was 'cowboys'. It also doubled as a leaving party for Annie, our fantastic Aussie GAP student who is returning home at Christmas. That is her with me above in the college common room, from where Willem kindly gave us a lift to the train station. It was a brilliant night with good food, great company, and the odd bevvie or two... It was Annie's choice where we continued the partying after the meal, & not surprisingly she chose the Walkabout, the chain of themed Australian pubs in the UK! And before you ask, yes that is a colander on Annie's head below... It's a long story dating back to our rugby tour to Ireland last April...

I got home at about 1:30am, which wasn't a bad effort considering we started the evening at half 5! Not surprisingly, Saturday was a very quiet day. I enjoyed the All-Blacks win over the poms, but still didn't think we played very well. Far too many mistakes for my liking... On Friday night Will left for Norwich with his University korfball team that he coaches. He returned home early this morning with the news that his team had made it through to the Uni nationals for the first time ever. That's the last 16 teams in the country, so he was pretty stoked! Today we went to visit his parents & had a lovely lunch. Pheasant casserole! I had never eaten pheasant before, it was very good. Ironically we had spent the morning admiring a beautiful male pheasant who was eating bird seed off our deck area! After catching up with his parent we travelled a further 15 minutes or so & also visited his brother & family. It was pretty manic with their 3 young kids, but great to see them, as we hadn't caught up with them for several months.

One & a half weeks till the Christmas holidays & counting! Tomorrow night we are off to a Kooks concert in London with the Abery's, Annabel & Willem, so am looking forward to that.