Christmas 2024

On 14th December I had surgery on my right elbow. It was planned and I had been waiting for 2 years for it. Without it I would lose the use of my hand. 

It all went well but took longer than expected and therefore recovery was longer than expected. So I spent the next 3.5 weeks over Christmas until to move or really use my high (dominate) hand. Thankfully I have an amazing family who didn't mind cutting up my food or brushing my hair for over 3 weeks. 

And I had the cutest puppies to keep my happy.

 

Christmas

I did a few Christmassy things in Edinburgh but didn't take any photos. 

The trip back to the west Midlands the weekend before Christmas was a nightmare. I had every weather type (rain, snow, brilliant sunshine, hail and fog) and then broke down just north of Lancaster. My windscreen wipes died while I was int he middle lane, overtaking a lorry, in torrential rain. Of course. I managed to get to the hard shoulder. And then the battery died. Thankfully the RAC got to me within the hour and replace the battery so I was only 3 hours later than planned.

I worked right up until Christmas Eve and we headed over the Kerry and Craig's on Christmas eve to spend Christmas at theirs. 

Obviously we spend lots of time greeting and playing with Finley.

Tired him out

Christmas morning was spent opening presents and playing with Finley. It is so much fun teasing him with paper. He loves it too and very much liked all his presents. (I gave him some treatments wrapped in old socks and wrapped up. Doesn't sound like much but he loves it!)

After some breakfast we took Finley for a walk over the Chase Common. Though it seemed like he was taking us for walk given how much he ran. He is nutcase. 

The Finley blur.

I tried to get a photos but mom and Finely were too busy amusing each other. I did get Finley to look at the camera. I failed with mom. :/

Dad and Craig playing with Finley.

Finley loves water, even though it was not very warm. And he went in every chance he got.

I meant to take photos of my sisters lovely Christmas dinner but forgot and just dug in. We spend the rest of the day watching movies and napping. Exactly how every Christmas should be. 

I managed to get some more photos of Finley on Boxing day morning before we came home. After playing/fighting/throwing him around for a few hours, he was a bit tired (though it never lasts long), and being super cute so I managed to get some photos.

We haven't done much else over Christmas so far. Another walk and some admin. It has been a nice break from work. 

Chestnuts and mulled wine

We did manage to have some fun over Christmas and New Year (I know I am really behind in updating this). By New Years Eve mom and dad were feeling a bit better so we enjoyed our meal and a sparkling wine comparison.

I love roasted chestnuts but last year and this year we shouldn't find any so decided to make them ourselves. You can just roast them int he oven but where is the fun in that? Dad had an old washing machine drum which has been converted to a fire barrel and he made a grill out of car engine oil dip sticks. (It worked fine until the plastic ends melted off onto the grass.)

Grill

 We had a little trouble get it to light. Who knew Christmas paper was not flammable? So dad decided to help it along. With I believe it was a bottle of break fluid something. Anyway very flammable.

Considering 

Having fun

A little too much

 It was all going well until he squirted it in for a little too long and the fire travelled up the stream to the mouth of the bottle. This happened 3 times. Luckily each time we managed to put it out before it got into the bottle of highly flammable liquid and create us a Molotov cocktail. Though we did set the lawn on fire each time while putting it out. Mom didn't care. It just burnt the mss anyway.
We got a good fire going.

And mom made some great mulled wine while dad and I were causing chaos in the back garden.

Chestnuts on.

Note the burnt plastic the floor.

Enjoying our efforts.

Kinver edge

A few pics from a walk over Kinver edge