Lunch in a Hurry

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Roy, Susan, Janine and Lauren, joined us for lunch. It was a little hurried as they got held up and we were destined for the annual carol concert later in the evening at the Salvation Army in town.

Luckily, Ann had done most of the food preparation the day before, so there was very little to do to get ready – but in amongst all of the activity, I even managed to get down to M and S to pick up the Christmas bird. When I say ‘bird’, this year it was actually six birds as we’re going to try out one of those three-bird-roasts (twice!) during the break.

M and S – a good pace to pick up a bird (or six!)

It was great to catch-up with all the news, but it really did feel like a rush – one minute we were chatting over desserts, the next, we were shovelling the debris into the dishwasher. As we slipped into ‘carol-singing mode’, we left the kitchen looking like a bomb-site and headed off to pick up Lee.

Lungs at the ready! – The Carol Service begins!

Thirty minutes later, we were all settled in the Citadel. Compared to previous years, it felt like a poorer turnout in terms of numbers, but what we lacked in bodies, we made up for in volume! All the usual suspects were there 🙂 – Jo, Janet, Helen, Mike and Rose (Val’s parents) – and of course, David and Valerie, ‘on-duty’ in full uniform.

There’s nothing like a good Christmas sing-along to get us in the festive mood – and tonight featured most, if not all of the ‘standards’ – I think we were all exhausted by the end! The best news of all was that over the course of the three sing-alongs, the SA had raised over £1200.

And then, with the singing over, we returned home – and the bombsite. Still with three pairs of hands on it all, an hour later, normality had returned, and the kitchen returned to a state of tidiness.

We finished the evening with a catch-up of an hour’s-worth of the gazillions of recordings still sitting on the Sky-box. Only another 37 hours left and the planner will be clear to fill up with Christmas TV!

It’s tough life in this house!!