Saturday, Christmas day. Up to toast and coffee. Then it was organising a Christmas meal to be driven over to my partners mothers. During the cooking time a friend who is working on Bermuda rings me to wish me happy Christmas, a really nice surprise. There are messages from friends and family wishing me and the family Christmas wishes. The cooking goes well as does the subsequent loading into my car. The family drive over in two cars and by 1 o’clock the food is on the table and we sit down to a Christmas meal. The group includes my partners mothers carer. We eat, present presents and lazily chat. It comes to time to go home and once there we relax and watch TV for a while. People drift to bed in anticipation of tomorrow, which is going to be our Christmas. During the evening I try to ring my sister but the landline rings out adn does not go to voice mail so I try her mobile, it goes directly to voice mail. I send an e-mail to let her know and eventually go to bed.

Sunday and its the families Christmas day. Its up to coffee and toast adn then we start the opening of our presents. This always takes a long time and invariably there is a break for coffee. Life is generous. Everyone ends up with collections of new, all of which is thoughtful and useful. The families generosity to each other is great. Amidst the presents there are games and toys which include inflatable antlers to be worn and hoops to be thrown at them. In the background a dinner cooks. The family sits down for the second time in two days to a turkey dinner and a flaming Christmas pudding. There is a period of post food napping and then as the kitchen is cleared the family discover the fun to be had from another of the Christmas toys. Soon there are targets being hit and foam bullets flying around. We settle down to a new board game where we collect coloured dice and create scoring patterns. We play for a long time dipping into a box of chocolates brought on a trip to York. We nibble and at one point my partner takes a call in order to do some family business. Eventually everyone is played out and we retreat to the lounge to watch some TV and generally laze. The family go to bed and I am left to watch the football on i-player and to write the blog.

I realise that this blog is not overflowing with the details of a Christmas but I am tired, part Christmas and I think part medication. Tomorrow I need to train, integrate my new gifts and begin to read my new books and plays. Perhaps some Shed time.