And then...

On Christmas Day, Son, Daughter-in-Law and The Unbloggable Toddler came down - Son was working on Christmas Eve and again on the 27th, so they could only stay one night. We all went to the playpark. Here's The Unbloggable Toddler swinging...

... and here's Son with his niece, Littlest.

The house was quite full with us all in it. Just for that one night, there were 11 of us sleeping in the house - and with four bedrooms and two bathrooms, that's quite a lot, especially as TUT needs a room to herself because she's only recently become a good(ish) sleeper. It was fine, though. At the fullest point, we had Niece in the sitting room on a sofa, Daughter 2 and SIL 2 in the dining room on a blow-up bed and Littlest in the study... well, at least for the part of the night when she slept... .

And there were 15 to dinner, which would be easy enough if there weren't six vegetarians among us, some of us rather fussy. (Or - looking at it another way - if the other nine weren't carnivores... .) Also, one son-in-law is diabetic and the other has a nut allergy. But we all got fed.

It would have been even easier if I hadn't had a rotten cold and sore throat (which I later passed on to my sister-in-law - so sorry!) and Littlest hadn't been keeping some of us from sleeping rather a lot.

Look at her - she has a completely clear conscience as she prepares to empty my recycling bin

and, for the umpteenth time, takes all the Elastoplast and micropore tape and antiseptic ointment out of the drawer.

Then, on various days, all the young ones went away, alas, and then my brother and his wife and the pair of us went to the BP Portrait Exhibition in the rather impressive Portrait Gallery. The portraits were amazing.

This one won first prize. I love it.You can't see it very well on this postcard, but some of the items on the table look as if they're magically spinning.  

We walked home afterwards. I would hate to live somewhere so big that you couldn't walk home if you really wanted to.

Then on Hogmanay (New Year's Eve) we brought in the New Year at Daughter 1's, which was lovely,

and later she and her family, including her lovely parents-in-law, came to dinner with us and Mr L's cousin.

And that's what happened in the last couple of weeks - except that today we heard that Son and Daughter-in-Law's new baby, due in May, is a boy. Grandson is very happy. "Yay!" he said. "It's not usually a boy." ("It" being a new baby in the family - though actually he does have a baby boy cousin on his dad's side.) He is the patriarch of the cousins.

And we're all excited and looking forward to meeting the New Unbloggable Baby. Or NUB.

Goodbye to all that

I haven't had much time to spend on the computer, what with lots of (very welcome) visitors, but I wish all my bloggy friends and lurkers a very happy 2015 when it arrives. Thank you to all who comment; it's lovely to feel a relationship with you. I will visit you in the next few days. And for those commenters who don't have a blog - I can't thank you by commenting on your posts, but I do thank you all the same.

Here's a heron standing very still on the Tyne in Haddington, where we went for a walk with our remaining visitors, my brother and his wife, yesterday.

Resolutions? To sort out the parental archives, which have been sitting in boxes and a cupboard ever since my mother died. Can't leave it for ever. Must grit the teeth (carefully - they're getting a bit elderly, my teeth). And to do some more quilting.

You? Going to do a marathon, write a novel, visit Australia/Britain/America, move house, get a new job, sort out your photos, learn to ballroom dance? I hope it goes well.

Tumbleweed...

Well. So that was that. It's only January 2 but I feel Christmas and New Year are pretty well over.

It was all very nice indeed. On the night of the ruby wedding party there were ten of us sleeping in the house, which was a bit of a squeeze. We have four bedrooms and two bathrooms (two bathrooms are not quite enough for ten, we've concluded, though better than one) - and a new fancy-pants blow up bed for the sitting room. This fell to the lot of Son and Daughter-in-Law since they were only staying for two nights at that point. By the time they returned for New Year, Niece and Nephew had departed so there was a bedroom available again.

Much food has been consumed. Various silly games have been played. There has been considerable cuddling of Grandson and Granddaughter (who continues to sleep through the night, hurray hurray, despite having a flowing cold now).

My brother and sister-in-law brought Grandson this tent, which is pointed and looks rather like something that Henry V might have slept in before the Battle of Agincourt. Or possibly it's supposed to be a Big Top. Anyway, he was delighted. "A castle for me!" he exclaimed, and took some of his traffic jams inside. The sitting room, which had a sofa brought from the living room for extra seating as well as its normal furniture, a Christmas tree, many toys on the floor and rather a lot of family members sitting around, didn't perhaps quite need a tent in it as well. Daughter 1 and Son-in-Law 1 have kindly decided that they don't have room for it so it can stay here. Hmm. However, it folds up and he really likes it so that's fine. Yesterday, we had his other grandparents with us so though we missed Niece and Nephew, there were 11 of us plus the two littles at dinner, which was lovely.

Today, however, alas... . They've all gone. Daughter 2, who's been with us since before Christmas, departed before dawn this morning. Brother and Sister-in-Law went away at 10 and Son and DIL at about 2pm. The house is very quiet. The washing machine has been much in use. I bless the inventor of the automatic washing machine. I trust he's in heaven, waited on by angels. (Unless he's still alive, of course.)

Daughter 2 and her husband are about to move from their rented flat in London to a flat that they've bought. They get the keys tomorrow and move in on Saturday. She's very excited but it's a busy time and I'm sure they'll be exhausted. Fingers crossed that they still like their new flat when they see it again. The rented one is damp and their neighbour plays very loud rock music, so we're hoping that this one is at least quiet and dry. It's also bigger, with an extra bedroom, and looks more stylish in the pictures, though is further out of the centre of town. Thinking of you, D2, and missing you as always.

I'm off to take down bits of tinsel and baubles and things. I want to get the house straight again and do some dusting. Bah humbug.

I hope all bloggy friends and lurkers had a good time over the festive season.

New Year's Day

Well, what did you do on New Year's Day? The snow's still lying deepish and crispish though a bit lumpy, so the cats did a lot of lying on blankets. Cassie left, Sirius right.

Sirius enjoys licking Cassie. Or possibly he just likes her to be clean before he lays his head down on her.

Most of the family came round for a meal, and afterwards Mr Life showed us that his electronic.. um.. whatever it is... can provide an octave of notes, whereupon our son-in-law played some creditably recognisable tunes on it. With both hands and much giggling.

Then Daughter 2 and Mr Life set up a game of Cranium. Clearly a serious matter.

In the course of the game, Daughter 1 uses Daughter 2 as a puppet - can't remember what she's supposed to be demonstrating.

Mr Life illustrates some phrase which Daughter 1, pausing from her knitting, identifies.

In a quiet moment, Son-in-Law models a hat he's made from Play Dough .

Next, however, he was given a card telling him to sculpt "a character" (from this Play Dough) and he merely waved the hat because it turned out that - though this was purely by chance - the character he was to illustrate was The Cat in the Hat. We knew he was a clever lad but we hadn't realised he was psychic...

Daughter 2 draws with her eyes shut and my mother and aunt have to guess what she's drawing.

They succeed because she manages rather a creditable roller skate. Not bad for blind drawing!

We had a good time. Even my confused aunt enjoyed it, though we all got slightly hysterical from time to time. For example, when she had to write down three words associated with "Paris", she wrote "Seine", "tourist" and ... "cat". Then three words associated with "cruise ship": "tourist", "boat" and ... "hunger".

However, one question was a "true or false": "Is it true that if you need to give an intravenous transfusion, if you have nothing more suitable you can use coconut water as liquid?" And she very confidently said this was true. And it was. (She's a retired doctor.)

I can't quite imagine being in that position: have needly thing, yes; tubey thing, yes; oh dear, I've forgotten the drippy stuff but hey, luckily I have a coconut here.

Daughter 1 finished her hat by the end of the game.