Its Christmas

Since I have time I'm writing this.

Normally by this time on Christmas day I would have been at my mothers with my two brothers, my sister and my two nephews opening presents and preparing for Christmas dinner. Today with with my mother and sister on holiday in Central America the family are going their separate ways with friends and partners and it feels very strange. I will be off in an hour or so to my friends AndyT and Linda for the day and really looking forward to it.

Sunday evening my dad made his annual visit which was pleasant and he left me more memorabilia of his side of the family, including a whole file of census forms and birth certificates right back to 1841, seems half my fathers side come from Burton on Trent the other half from St Helen's Lancashire.

Since I don't know that many Andy's I also went to see AndyL at the shop on Sunday and deliver presents, the shop was dead, Ripley was empty and AndyL was painting Warhammer figures with Mike, I spent a few hours chatting, and will see them New Years Eve along with Heather and few others for the evening.

On Monday night I went out with Jock (AndyC) and Assy (AndyH) where we chatted about relationships, World of Warcraft, reenactment, larp and it seems Jocks want to retry his hand at Larp and Assy being frothed at by DaveP when we went TORM wants to try it. We have agreed they will have a go at a local AscendancyLRP linear event in the spring and also when I'm free and we can coordinate it probably June have go at MaelstomLRP two different styles of larp.

The last thing I did yesterday was visit Pets at Home for a few gifts for Jasmine which we opened last night, the vibrating frog was a immediate success, the crinkly fingers were also played with but the Cat Bubble Gun with catnip flavoured soap suds sent Jasmine behind the sofa, although this mornings fun is diving into the Christmas wrapping paper.

Actually not quite the last thing I also visited my friends Ste and Deb to drop off present, their house was chaos with lots of people comming and going, so I only stayed just over an hour, not one who likes too many people, especially those I don't know.

Anyway I've opened my selection of present which include gift vouchers, socks, biscuits, a magnifying glass, incense burner, clockwork Robby the Robot, magic cards, tea, a book on hand shadows and a pretty box, no presents from the family this year since we decided not to buy any, although I did since I purchased some of them at Chatworth in August. My brother Stephen also cheated and bought me something and brother texted me and said he would be dropping off a present so no buying present didn't go quite to plan.

Merry Christmas to anyone who reads this, I will probably seeing quite a few of you anyway over the next week.

Chatsworth Picnic

This Saturday I invited Julie and Dave up to Derbyshire to have a day out at Chatsworth Country Fair, something I've been to several times before and always enjoyed, a good place to shop for some of the things you don't normally see.

The forecast was for a muggy but dry day, but even so its Britain so I packed my rain coat just in case, I also suggested we all take walking boots since with the rain over last month it had the potential to be muddy, however no mud, and reasonable amount of sun enough to leave my hat less bald head sun burnt.

The fair is quite big and if you went to see all the activities in all the corners of the fair you would need more than a day, we arrived late morning and left just before it got dark about 7.30pm with a picnic in between back at the car.

Julie bought a few Christmas presents, and so did I from the more crafty gift stalls, plus some nice bags, Dave bought some nuts and liquorice.

We looked around vintage vehicles, stopped to watch ferret racing, amateur retriever trial for dogs and also the dog agility relay photographs below, but didn't stop to watch many of the other activities such as the pony and trap dressage my friend sisters usually enters, or go have a go with black powder rifles.

Shopping was fun, Julie says she's never seen so much tweed, the fair is definitely aimed at the country activities with capital C, you can buy camouflaged hides for bird watching or pigeon shooting, wet weather gear for fishing in a typhoon, leather hats and wax jackets by the lorry load, their were several taxidermist stalls selling stuffed animals, the walking stick guild, and numerous stand selling walking sticks, I won't go on hopefully you get the picture.

We finished the day by spreading the picnic blanket out and watching the hot air balloons try to get out of the valley, at least half of these struggled to gain height for whatever reason one hitting a tree, and several coming down in the fields full of cars we were parked in, the burners went on full blast to ensure they found clear spot, luckily the car park in early evening was not that full, just a few like us staying until the traffic leaving had dropped off, some having barbeque's.

We talk about what looked like a folly a moated platform it turns out after a looking online to be a garden feature called Queen Mary's Bower. This is raised garden is now associated with Mary Queen of Scots, who was said to have used the garden on top of the platform during her enforced visits to Chatsworth.

Dave bought us all fish and chips on the way home, although each fish could have fed fifty, we ate these at my house before a very tired looking Julie left around 10pm to drive home to Coventry.

Ferret Racing

Dog Agility

Shopping

Balloons coming back down

Pretty photos of Balloons