I enjoyed fifteen minutes of surreal, psychedelic, crazy, mesmerising beauty yesterday morning, as I smoked my first cigarette of the day and drank my tea outside on the deck, watching the eastern sky bubble up into hell’s own cauldron. Incredible.
Happy New Year to you all!
The last couple of weeks have been somewhat chaotic and jam-packed in the Waller-Wilkinson household, as I’m sure they have for many of you the world over.
On 22nd December I got my man back from Grenada after almost three months, (or just over two months, depending on whether you take his word or mine as the more accurate. It certainly felt like three months to me.)
On 23rd December my middle sister arrived from Sweden with her husband and two divine children and we collected our parents to join us on Christmas morning, so then we were 11. It was fun, noisy, laughter and love filled, utterly exhilarating, and quite exhausting. We demolished a Turkey twice the size of my torso which I had slow cooked in the simmering oven of the aga for 16 hours and it was, although I say it myself, rather tasty, but we missed out on our traditional prawn cocktail starter because I bought all the possible ingredients one could possibly need to add to the best and most luxurious prawn cocktail in the world… Except the prawns! Hey ho- at least I remembered the sprouts 
This years crackers were entertaining in that they provided masks, rather than hats. My Pa looked particularly memorable, catching a sneaky pre-prandial snooze… (See the rest of the family on my facebook page if you’re so inclined.)
This years crackers were entertaining in that they provided masks, rather than hats. My Pa looked particularly memorable, catching a sneaky pre-prandial snooze… (See the rest of the family on my facebook page if you’re so inclined.)
On boxing day my youngest sister arrived with her husband and her two divine children and we collected our parents once again (we’d packed them off in a taxi the previous evening) and then we were 15 ! And my house is not big… But we all somehow fitted in and we made music all day. Between us we played three guitars, two ukeleles, two flutes, bongos, a mouth organ, a piano, mixed voices and a truly wonderful time was had by all.
My man survived his baptism by fire, i.e. meeting his woman’s family for the first time, all at once, at Christmas! Well done him… Braveheart, I say!
Needless to say they loved him and he loved them, and why not, for they’re all completely lovely. And no, of course I’m not biased… Not at all.
By 28th December they’d all gone home or away, including my three boys who were whisked off to Japan to ski with their father, lucky lot, and I kind of flopped in a crumpled, sleepy heap for several days, only raising my gaze from my navel to read a little, only moving my arms occasionally to lift a tea cup or a fag to my lips, only moving my legs once a day to walk the dogs. Indeed, if it hadn’t been for the dogs, I may well have melded to the sofa.
Can’t you just hear Bruce’s plaintive howls… ‘Please, please, please, just a little one, round the block, to the bottom of the garden and back… please…?’
It’s been lovely though. Just what we needed- Lots of peace and quiet and time to re-adjust to each other.
We spent a delightful New Year with old (as in length of friendship, not number of years alive…) and very dear friends, eating wonderful food, drinking lots of fizz and playing my favourite board game-Taboo!
Then back to reality and work with a snotty nose and a much rounder tummy.
Yes. Work. I’m having to do a lot more days as we lost a key member of my team just before Christmas in very unpleasant circumstances! so I’m having to take on her work load plus my own until we find a replacement. This has meant that I’ve been unable to focus on my writing for a while and it will remain that way for a few months, so I may not be posting quite so many stories or poems for a while. I’ll try to keep up with the diary though as I’m so excited to now have almost a hundred followers and I want to try to keep you all just a little bit interested.
Leicester Writer’s club starts back up tonight, which I’m sure will inspire me and living with a writer has surely got to help, so I shall keep positive that somehow, time will be found for everything. I’m really looking forward to 2012, more than I’ve looked forward to a time in my own life for many years. 2011 ended up being unexpectedly fantastic, incredibly rewarding, challenging, exciting, filled with new love and old, friendship, family and creative fulfilment. Here’s to the future and good luck to all you beautiful bloggers out there.
Tagged: Christmas, Christmas day, family, friends, lethargy, love, New Year, posting, turkey, writing
Just had a stalk of your blog – very cool!
The colours on the sky are amazing..you can’t beat a sunrise or sunset…I see them as little reminders from above to say.. ‘yeah, you think you’re good? Check this out!’
All the best
That’s a lovely idea… Thanks! You’re welcome anytime:)