So as British ex-pats living in the US but currently visiting in the UK, do we wish you a Happy New Year on the basis of midnight having passed here or not? Let's say not and save that for tomorrow.
Today was full of traditional (for us) Boxing Day activities (although it was only Boxing Day in the sense that yesterday was Christmas Day again). These were: 1) catching my uncle leaving and forcing him to the goodbyes he was trying to avoid; 2) 'Christmas tree' presents; 3) cold turkey with mash, bread sauce and pickle, 4) excavating huge stump in back garden.
E5N1 has been quite enjoying this little (borrowed) play-ring. It prevents him losing whatever he's playing with across the floor out of reach. As you know he's not really mobile yet. Of course not really mobile is not the same as not mobile at all.
This evening my sisters, nieces and nephew arrived as well as my uncle, so we're all set for a Christmas Day replay tomorrow. Watch this space and don't forget to get solving the pop puns in the great PPPQ.
All the Exiles are well trained at this now. I gathered the family on the the sofa / couch / settee, balanced the camera and set the timer. I usually say "OK, smile now!" as the picture is about to be taken and they usually do. I got up to have a look, "I'd better take one more". Having repeated the process, while I was looking at the picture, Exile #3 said "Stay still everyone" She knows I regularly need more than two attempts to get a good one of these group shots. This is, however, the second and final shot from today's 'session'. Even E5N1 seems quite content to be photographed - of course he hasn't known me without the pressure of a daily blog post to write.
We have had a very nice Christmas day. We were at church again with Nan where Exile #3 had a starring moment when she was the only volunteer to unwrap a 'present' - the last candle for the Advent-crown and then light the five candles. We also saw one of Exile #2's old friends now a once in a couple of Christmas services acquaintance.
I suppose when it comes to friends of the family, C & B are vying for position as our oldest. I first met C aged 11 when on my the first day of secondary school, weird northerner (me) met weird southerner (him) in the middle of the country. I first met B on the first day of college in similar circumstances. C was my Best Man and they are Exile #3's Godparents. So it was great to catch up with them properly today and to let them make E5N1's acquaintance.
Here is E5N1 trying to will the block closer to him earlier. I think he realises that the real trick is to move himself closer to it, but his efforts mostly result in rotation on the spot or the occasional shuffle backwards rather than the forward movement he desires. He was very patient with it for some time today - even though I was taking photographs rather than helping.
We had a little drive today from current base with Exile #2's parents for a late-arranged visit to Dave Funkypancake and family. Last time we saw them Kezia (centre) and Exile #3 (right) were small enough to fit in a couple of baby-carrier backpacks for us to go for a walk so it must be about 4 years ago. Thankfully the internet has kept us in contact (sporadically) over the intervening years.
This morning we all went into the local market town to do a bit of odd-and-ends shopping. When we returned, we waited outside for Exile #2's parents to drive in ahead of us. They pulled into the drive, then Exile #2's mum got out to open the garage door.
Exile #2 and I took E5N1 into Oxford city centre for some late Christmas shopping today. Until seven years ago, Oxford was our nearest city and we were quite used to the traffic. Not any more.
OK, I was going to name this post after a game we have played as an ice-breaker with bells-on in a few different groups. The missing word starts with 'n' and rhymes with prude. I suddenly thought of the Google hits that might end up coming my way and couldn't do it.
At end-of-school time we went to see Barry, Emma, Hannah & Rosie. Hannah and Exile #3 were born within a couple of days of each other and at the time we were members of the same church and mothers and daughters in particular became very close. Rosie and Exile #4 came along a couple of years later, a year after that the older girls were finally at school together and four months later we left the country.
Exile #2, E5N1 and I went to our pre-exile church this morning for the first time in over 11 months. We left the girls with my parents because Exile #4 had shown some signs of having a tummy-bug (stomach-flu?) and we though better of either causing an outbreak amongst the children at church in the week before Christmas or trying to take Exile #3 and leave her on her own.
Every picture tells a story. It's not necessarily a true story though.
It feels like this is the second post of a very long day. In fact it is late afternoon on the day after the last one. I'm still wearing the same clothes though. Nice.
They love their weather statistics here - average precipitation (are we ahead or behind for this month?), record high and low temperatures for every day of the year. The weather forecasters and news anchors also love to mark the seasons with comments on sunrise and sunset times and the equinoxes and solstices. As far as they are concerned here, winter will not start until the Winter Solstice on December 22nd. So, it's still Fall/Autumn at the moment - "Although the calendar may say otherwise, it certainly felt like winter today" said the news anchor this evening.
We saw at least two cars that had slipped off the road into ditches, a huge pickup truck proudly displaying its winter-friendly '4x4' status as it snaked and slid along the road, a car stuck (temporarily) in a pile of snow as it tried to turn off one ploughed road into another. In the end I had to drop my passenger off at the end of his road leaving him to trudge down to his temporary residence (ours last winter) because the snow-plow had left a bank of snow across the end of it and I didn't have full confidence in the ability of my little car to break through especially since we were approaching from an acute angle. Apart from that, the car with its new all-season tires coped very well with what were generally accepted to be quite bad driving conditions.
I was delighted on getting home to find that half the driveway had been shovelled by Exile #2 so I could drive straight in to the garage. I did my duty by shovelling the other half and the path to the front door. An hour later than usual Exile #3 arrived home on the school bus. I managed to disguise my relief at having her home safely I think, and she chose her first words well as she walked up the drive: Wow, did you do all this? I did of course give my wife her share of the credit. The shovel deserves a good deal of credit too - I think that the whole drive-clearance probably took less effort than just getting through the pile across the bottom of the drive last winter using a garden spade.
Exile #4 was calling this inflatable globe a 'beach ball' this morning. She was also complaining that it was too heavy for her to carry down the stairs. Then again, the other day she asked when we would have a new house because we'd been in this one for such a long time. So much for worrying about putting her through too much disruption.
Here are the girls getting ready for the party on Sunday. Exile #4's expression makes me laugh every time I look at it. Tonight at bedtime she shunned her normal bedtime song (Twinkle Twinkle with a custom second verse which usually rhymes 'circle' with 'purple'). Instead, she gave us a very lively rendition of "Sally on a bicycle" which eventually (5th time round) dissolved into more giggling than singing and nearly resulted in injury when her excited bouncing around nearly saw her topple off our bed.