In which 2014 begins with a whimper

A brussel sprouts wreath I spotted.

I've had these photos ready to share with my blog for days. Unfortunately I'm typing this with a mound of tissues at my side. It's been the first time in four days when I've felt well enough and switched on enough to even think about doing so. My Christmas was absolutely wonderful. I visited Yorkshire to stay with my parents, but got back South for New Year's and hit a terrible cold. I was tucked up in bed with every pillow in the house by 10pm. Definitely not a party night. However, this blog isn't a pity party. Have enough time off that hopefully I'll be recovered to go back to work to work on time.

Anyway, Christmas was delightful. I wanted to share a few of the things we got up to and then perhaps a few favourite presents at the weekend.

There was no snow at the house, but up on the hills we could see it and occasionally drove past some slush on our way around the countryside. I took these photos on Christmas Day. After church and before the big dinner Andy and I went for a little walk and took Christmas selfies. :)

You can also see my Christmas Day outfit. In our family we have a tradition of dressing up really smart on Christmas Day, nice dresses and best jewellery etc. But this year I didn't have a new dress and just went for space theme and lightning jumper. No one minded anyway.

The present piles

 After the beautiful bright day on Christmas, there were plenty of other walks because that is what my family do, weather regardless...

 

We then tried to do another outfit post set of photos where the sun was so bright that the only non-squinty photos were mostly ones where I'm looking completely away. 

I do love going back up to Yorkshire for the wintry times. It was the first time we'd been back since the wedding and it was strange to see my room where I'd got ready and have all those memories back. It was also one of the last times I'll see that room as my parents are retiring in the Summer. I went to visit the house they've bought for retirement and it's just lovely. I'm so excited for them. However it did mean I did The Biggest Sort Out Ever whilst I was there. I filled about 5 bin bags of stuff for throwing out, 2 boxes of recycling and 2 whole boxes of books for the charity shop. I've never thrown out so many books before in my life. It had to be done though. I quite enjoy it because it leaves me with the feeling that all I have left is precious to me. Throwing out the peripherals make me value all I have even more. I don't know what you are like, but I have huge amounts of toys that I'm still holding onto though. You know I like Playmobil and Lego and they are already at my house. But marked to be delivered to me now are the 2 boxes of Polly Pockets! I can't wait to have them here to photograph for you all!

How was Christmas for you? I hope you had a much better start to the New Year than I am, and have great things planned for 2014.

Happy New Year!

p.s. One final edit, there are massive storms across Britian at the moment. Here are some shots featuring Aberystwyth where I went to uni, this one includes the building I used to live in:

From Wales Online by Twitter/@matt_fwyalchen