HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025!! I hope it will be a good one for you and yours and the world in general. I’m writing from my desk in the kitchen on a gloriously sunny day. The park looked absolutely splendid this morning – cold and frosty:-
I have to admit that I feel like I’m crawling into the new year on my hands and knees, a little bit broken. Well, that’s if I could crawl on my hands and knees. I actually have some seriously embarrassing Disco Damage after a long night of dancing with my children, whereby I somehow managed to dislocate my thumb, so it’s in a splint and very painful and so I can’t even bloody crawl. Maybe I should just commando roll into the new year. Anyway, more of that later, maybe.
It’s been sooooo busy for everyone as usual and I’ve eaten so much food and drunk so much alcohol that I’ve even considered doing dry January…although only for about this long:-
Apparently Dry January is really bad for you. I don’t know where I heard that, but I’m sticking with it.
So after my last post – all about the fun things we had been doing around birthday and engagement parties, we swiftly moved into December with yet more birthdays and Christmas celebrations.
In the lead up to Xmas, we had my son’s birthday celebrations and then a visit to Kew Lights which is always a joyful, festive event.
Even after all these years of trying to manage Christmas as a divorced family and finding a solution that works, not only for the kids, but for the two parents as well…it’s still difficult to wave them goodbye. This year was my turn to have them on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. We had a really fun evening at our local pub with family and friends:-
My kids left at midday to drive to their dad’s to spend Xmas with their blended family. It’s still painful to watch them drive off, but it’s certainly more manageable these days as they get older and we get used to our new world order. At some point, they’ll all choose to do different things for Xmas with their partners etc, so I’m sure there is a time limit looming – but this year I’ll have them all for Xmas (I hope) which I’m already looking forward to. You just have to plan for things to do before and after Christmas Day in order to get them all back together.
Got a nice photo of us all together before they left:-
We have become the Adidas family:-
Best present ever:-
We managed an early Christmas day walk with my son and his fiancé:-
After the kids left on Christmas day my brother and I drove 3 hours to my other brother’s house, which was kind of perfect. The three of us wanted to be together now that we’re all orphans and whilst it was strange not to have our mother in the back of the car, at least we know she would have been delighted that we all spent Xmas together. We were very well fed and watered:-
We drove back on Boxing Day to regroup with (nearly) all our kids and had a pizza night and delicious Picanté cocktails at my brother’s:-
Twixmas is meant to be the grey area you need to recover, but we all seemed to be busy then as well…and hence the crawl into New Year’s Eve, which proved to be a really fun event, celebrated with a few other close friends – feeling just warm and happy:-
So, whilst I’m feeling a little ashamed of my UDI (Unidentified Drinking Injury – I may have been trying to breakdance – or in my case brakedance)…whereby my thumb came out of it’s socket and my son managed to pop it back in and I had to then go and have several X-rays and now a follow up in two weeks with some physio, the future is looking rosy! black and blue!
I love the NHS – they were all so lovely and so efficient at St George’s Hospital!:-
I will be back to some sense of normality on Monday, with new classes starting and hopefully my mind and body will have recovered from our mammoth partython!
I wish you all a happy and healthy new year!
