Tired; Christmas!

Oh my goodness, I’ve been soooooo busy over the last week, I’ve come to work for a rest! My boss left me a list of things to do to make sure I wasn’t bored as I’m in on my own for two days, but I’ve finished the list now, with half a day still to go. SOOOO I’m going to catch up on blogging etc.

Friday 21st December
Full day at work followed by the 200 mile journey up to Cumbria. I can’t believe how quickly we did it. We stopped for half an hour to get something to eat, but if we’d carried on straight through, it was only 2hr 55m of driving! It usually takes at least 3hr 30m as we always hit traffic, without fail. But this time, there was hardly any traffic on the road and we whizzed all the way up. I was worried because the news said it was going to be the busiest day of the year with 18 millions cars on the road, but it turns out they were wrong. Which was nice.

Got to my parents house and my sister was there, so we cracked open the drinks and had a nice catch up. Her two girls were in bed so I saw them the next morning.

Saturday 22nd December
We wandered into town to pick up some bits and pieces, including a last minute Christmas present for six year old Eleanor (I got her a toy JCB, Sonja says she loves anything mechanical). Me and Jay also bought a fireguard and some fire irons, ready for our first real fire.

In the evening, we met my friends at the pub and then went to Sonja’s house for more drink. We walked in on my 17 year old nephew trying to cut his own hair, but it looked like he’d been hacking at it with hedge trimmers, big bald patches everywhere and hair covering the entire living room! The nutter.

Sunday 23rd December
Christmas number one! Me, Jay and my parents opened presents in the morning. I got mainly money to go towards our treadmill (which I still haven’t tried as I’ve been too busy!) and some bits and pieces like books, mini torch, bag charm, chocolate etc.

After presents, we walked to the pub for Christmas dinner, which was £9.95 for two courses, but it was ENORMOUS and very delicious. Great value for money.

We then walked to my nana and Granda’s house to give them presents, and they gave us a £20 B&Q voucher, which will come in very useful.

After that, we walked to my sister’s house to give out presents there. Everyone was very pleased with what I gave them, Eleanor screamed when she opened her JCB so I think she liked it!

The rest of the evening was spent relaxing as we had to drive back down first thing in the morning.

Monday 24th December
We were on the road by 9:30am, making our way to Jay’s dad’s house in the Peak District. Everyone was saying that driving over Snake Pass was going to be horrendous, but I actually really enjoyed it; very bendy and twisty, through the mountains, it was great fun to drive.

The horrendous bit was navigating the motorways around Manchester; I must have driven on six different motorways within the space of about 20 miles and getting in the right lane each time was a bloody nightmare. At one point, my sat nav said to keep left, which I did, but that lane was going into Manchester city centre, so I had to break the law and drive over the white striped lines to get back onto the motorway!

We arrived at their house just in time for lunch, and we met their gorgeous 14 week old dachshund. She is insane, running and leaping about and chewing everything that moves. You have to keep a constant eye on your shoelaces, hair, scarf, earrings, bags etc etc.

After a couple of hours, we set off again and got home at 5pm. Jay started preparing Christmas dinner while I unpacked and dressed the table for the next day. Then we headed over to Rob and Angi’s for Christmas drinks and nibbles.

Tuesday 25th December
Christmas Day! Me and Jay had breakfast and opened presents (I got clothes and a diary from Jay, I got him lots of random bits. We set a £50 limit as we don’t have much spare money at the moment, it’s all going on the house!)

Jay got the fire going and it was lovely and toasty. The only thing with an open fire is that you have to do things to it every 5-10 minutes, either poking it or adding things on, so that was hard work. Thank goodness we’re not Victorian and actually have the option of central heating!

Then his mom, sister, brother-in-law, two kids and dog arrived and it was chaos. For some reason, they’d brought ALL of their presents to open, including the kids’ ones from Santa, so our entire house was covered in toys and wrapping paper. At least we had plenty of kindling for the fire!

We had dinner; three courses! Jay’s BIL made a lovely creamy vegetable soup, and for the main, Jay had done turkey and pork with loads of lovely crackling, as well as the usual trimmings. For dessert, there was cheesecake.

Then came the washing up. On Christmas day I did five loads of washing up. By hand. And it just kept on coming, I’m sure it was breeding. On Boxing day I think I did another four or five loads. Bloody hell, no one told me that Christmas was all about washing up. No way are we doing Christmas dinner again next year, not for seven people anyway; and they all invited themselves over, we didn’t even invite them!

They stayed until 6pm but then we had to go to Jay’s cousin’s house, even though I was falling asleep. They smoke like chimneys and she isn’t backwards at coming forward, says exactly what she thinks. She’s always on at me and Jay about getting married and having babies. Yeah well, I’m waiting for him to ask me!

She also told me I look awful because of the black bags under my eyes. Thanks, his mom told me the same thing the other week. They’ve always been there and I’ve always been self conscious about them, but since I’ve hit 30, they’re becoming harder to cover up. It’s nothing to do with being tired or ill, it’s just part of my face. So when people go on about it, it bothers me. I wouldn’t dream of picking up on someone’s appearance and telling them they look awful, especially if it’s a permanent fixture! :o(

Boxing Day was spent having a well earned rest and catching up on all the Christmas TV we recorded. Yesterday and today I’m back at work, on my own, while Jay has two more days off. We’re supposed to be going to his sister’s house tonight for a party, but I really don’t want to go. There are going to be 32 people there, none of whom I know, and I’m absolutely knackered. We still have to see Jay’s other cousin on Saturday and go to Loughborough for New Year’s Eve. So I’m staying in and relaxing tonight. If Jay wants to go, that’s up to him, but it’s about 15 miles away so I don’t know how he’ll get there.

Right, it’s lunchtime now. Leftover Christmas dinner curry. Yep, not just the turkey, Jay chucked in everything including sprouts, carrots and potatoes. It’s quite nice!

Sorry that was a lot of writing with no photos, but I didn’t really take many and don’t have access to them at work.

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are looking forward to New Year!