Christmas Eve

Ok, so we don't have any photographic evidence... but we cleaned, dusted, hoovered, ironed, packed AND put up a new storage unit in preparation for the season's festivities. Then on Christmas Eve, everything was ready so we packed the car (took about 3 hours to fit everything in - started to panic about fitting everything in to come home again too!!!) and trundled off to Buckingham. A whirlwind visit to see John, Lucy and Ella. A furtive exchange of gifts, cup of tea and slice of Christmas cake later we rushed over to Botolph Claydon.

On arrival Jessica was hyper at seeing Grandma, Grandad, Pete AND Courtney all at the same time - more than any girl could cope with. But she and Pete soon settled into games testing to see how silly they could make the other one look (I think Jessica wins hands down!!!). We had a lovely dinner to celebrate Christmas as Pete and Courtney were only going to be around for a short while on Christmas day before flying over to Canada to be with Courtney's family. So Jessica and Madeline were very good and patient and sat through quite a long meal for little girls without getting too anxious.

We then played, put out the mince pie, carrot and water ("He'll be thirsty Mummy, water'd be better for him!") and then the girls went to bed. Pete, Courtney, Melissa, Nick and I all went through a time warp and went into Buckingham for a few drinks and to catch up with friends old and new (in different pubs I hasten to add - that just wouldn't be cool!) and eventually got home, tired and smoky, collapsing into bed....