On the Plus side....

The nights are drawing out again...yes they are, and we'll have lots of lovely snow in the next two months and then Spring will be here.
Dust off the sledges and buy a warm hat!

Both Christmas Cake attempts were unmitigated failures.
On the plus side, the birds had some very nice nosh while the heavy snow covered up the worms.

The extending handle with attachments received for Christmas was a tad disappointing. One attachment is for darling husband to clean his tractor windows without having to climb onto it and the other looks like a rather large toilet brush.
On the plus side, if the house across the valley need their toilet cleaning, I can do it for them without leaving my kitchen.

Shirl has now arrived at her country residence with 'wotcha mate!'
On the plus side, it will give me new Blog fodder (watch this space).

Pictionary proved to be quite a volatile game yesterday with nieces. Tears and tantrums and scribbling out were all par for the course.
On the plus side, it did distract them from noticing ants crawling across the ceiling above their heads.

The Antworld space habitat for ants hasn't proved to be the best present this year.
An aunt took middle child to get ants from the greenhouse but it seems the ants the aunt found were the wrong size ants because they all escaped out of the air holes.
On the plus side, they did leave their eggs behind.

Happy New Year everyone
May all your dreams come true (slushier than the mushy stuff outside in my garden)
Frog
x

The Frog Christmas

Well, it was certainly a different Christmas.
It was our first one without MIL, so the whole family wished to be together. Now, with the amount of people that involved, careful thought was required.
One BIL was taken very ill just before Christmas and we had to knock the altogether plan on the head, he needed peace and quiet. He stayed home with wife and family.
One BIL is huffy so we all ignore him.
One BIL was to eat with his sister and family.
My sister and BIL stayed at their house avoiding all relations (and very wise too).
Shirl and 'Whotcha! mate!' were snowed in, in their tiny Kent residence.
So I was to cook lunch just for the Frog family, one sister in law, two Aunts and two Uncles and one brother in law.
Although there were 11 of us, we had to consider that BIL eats more than most families put together so I catered for 15.
Christmas morning was bright and sunny, snow covered the garden and fields, it was lovely!
SIL brought all the family china and silver for us to use, just for the day and she came armed with home-made Plum wine, a bottle of fizz and a Christmas Pudding she made with my children a few weeks ago.

Our biggest crisis was terribly serious.
We heard a scream.
Howls followed.
The teenager burst into the kitchen saying the youngest Frog needed me.
I rushed to her yelling to the teenager(in a delicate and ladylike manner)...'What's happened?'
The teenager didn't answer.
She couldn't speak.
There were tears in her eyes.
My goodness...what was I going to find?
Youngest scrumplet had used the loo and wriggled forward to get off, when her paper hat from her cracker slipped from her little head and landed in the water!
Middle daughter was crying laughing.
Little scrumplet was howling, tears streaming down her cheeks, and between sobs screamed..'IT'S NOT FUNNY!!!'
The teenager hid outside the bathroom trying to compose herself.
I managed to placate the poor little thing with magic kisses and my paper hat from my cracker and escaped from the bathroom before I burst into laughter as well.

Youngest daughter was given a present to open to placate her.
It was Astronaut Ice- Cream.
She was quite puzzled and then pointedly said:
"Mummy this present isn't a very good one for me because I don't want to be an Astronaut when I grow up!"