My photo heavy Christmas 2013

I'm lucky enough to still be off work, so I think I can probably still just about get away with a Christmas post.

Probably the best way of illustrating my Christmas is through the various photographs I took. I started on Christmas Eve, wanting to get a few pictures of the tree and decorations before the presents were unwrapped. We'd been to visit Andrew's parents on the 23rd, so had gifts from them for us, as well as from each other to ourselves, I couldn't believe how many there were!

Christmas tree complete with presents

One of the bargain tealight holders I got from Sainsbury's last year

Another tealight holder, I've had this one for years and still love the way it lights up.

I swear a lot trying to hang up the Christmas cards, but it's inevitably worth it!

My first attempt at taking a bokeh style photo of the Christmas tree.

My second attempt with my new lens, much better!

I'd taken part in Romany Scarlett's Twitter Secret Santa, this was my wrapped gift. Beautiful!

And this is what I got, chocolate and a geocaching travel bug. Awesome!

These little guys have been knocking around the front room for years, they come into their own at Christmas!

We had a late Christmas lunch, I watched Arthur Christmas whilst the turkey cooked.

The result. Very good it was too, although I could hardly eat the next day!

We saw my parents and brother on Boxing Day and Andrew's family on the 27th. Bramble, Andrew's parents' dog was as photogenic as ever.

I got this penguin snowglobe from my parents. He's very seasonal, if a little grumpy looking.

For those who like seeing presents. This is what I was lucky enough to get from Andrew and his parents (plus my Secret Santa!)

And this is what I got from my family and Andrew's aunt. A few price tags were missed in packing! We also had a few joint presents which I've not photographed, but were much appreciated.

 

I had a wonderful Christmas this year. It was nice having Christmas Day to ourselves, but then really good to catch up with family afterwards. I've also had over a week off work which has given me a much needed break, it'll be a real struggle getting back to it on Thursday!

I hope you've had a good Christmas too. Leave me a link if you've blogged about your Christmas, I love reading about them.

A weekend with my doggy friend

Well, actually we spent the weekend with my inlaws and also saw my brother and sister in law, but it was my inlaws' dog which seemed to enjoy my company most.

We travelled up on the Saturday morning and went to see my sister in law first, she'd been in hospital recently and still wasn't 100%, so it was good to see her on the mend. As soon as we walked in it was impossible to miss the enormous blue '4' and '0' balloons. It was the weekend before Andrew's birthday and I guess he should have known he'd not get away without some attention being brought to his birthday! After a cup of tea and a catch up, we left, complete with balloons and birthday presents, and headed on to Andrew's parents. Andrew's father was out, so we had a chat with his mother and tickled the dog's ears whilst enjoying a cup of tea and a lunch of oatcakes (love Staffordshire oatcakes!) 

We'd spotted that there were plenty of geocaches within a mile of their house, so we headed out, dog in tow, to find as many as we could. Bramble started off really enthusiastically, but she has only got little legs, and normally only covers about three miles so by about halfway round she was starting to flag a little. 

We carried on and ended up doing twenty caches, and I even managed to get her home clean. Result!

 We headed back at about 6pm for a tea of chicken in watercress sauce. Delicious.

The next day my brother and sister in law came over and we headed out with the inlaws for a meal at a local restaurant. Andrew decided not to follow in the family tradition of taking his balloons in to dress the table! To make sure we made the most of them I made him a birthday grotto in the corner of the front room when we got home. It's fair to say any visitors wouldn't be able to escape the fact that it was Andrew's birthday!