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. 

Skydiving

July has been pretty busy. I finished my job at Tesco and got to spend some time at home in between. The weather wasn't as hoped but we managed to head out to the river and for lunch and a few walks. One of the main reasons for going home was Dad's 70th birthday. And instead of doing something normal, he wanted to go skydiving. So we all went.

Signing in.

Mom was not going to go up in a plane, let alone jump out of one! So jumping, it was myself, my dad, my sister, brother-in-law and one of dad's friends who was also 70th year. We were split in runs, so Dad and I went first, Craig and Uncle Jim second, and Kerry was on the third flight. We all decided to have the video packages (who knew if we were going to do this again?).

On the way up.

Dad jumped first

He's off.

Then my turn.

It was an experience.

Oddly I wasn't nervous jumping (my fitbit says my heart rate got up to a massive 90 bpm) - maybe because I was firmly attached to someone who knew what they were doing. We did free-fall for about 45 seconds and were falling at about 120 mph, hence the wonderful face lift photos. :)

When he pulled the shoot, that hurt. I had straps around the top of my legs, my shoulders and across the chest, and damn the legs straps hurt. It was very pretty coming down but I totally screwed the landing. You are supposed to lift your legs up and land on your butt. But thanks to the straps my legs were numb and didn't go up. So I landed on my knees. I had some impressive bruises for the next few weeks. Though not as bad as my brother-in-law who go a huge bruise on his thigh from the straps.

Dad was glad he did it, but like me, not over-keen on doing it again.

After the skydiving, we all went back to Kerry and Craig's house for dinner. She had done some decorating and got a cake for dad. He was very happy with it all.

Happy with the giant balloons.

The awesome cake.

Dad was very happy with his cake and apparently it was a very good red velvet. He had a great time. So did I, though it took quite some time to get over the bruises and aches.