Mamouth christmas post

Friday 23rd December 2005

Well after a lovely sleep in my own bed I woke bright and early late Friday morning by my mum with a cup of good old English tea (milk as standard). We had a lovely lazy morning and then in the afternoon we had a trip to the cinema to see Narnia. I was soooo excited and as with all films which have adapted books I know well I was a little nervous in case it didn't live up to expectations. I have to say it didn't live up to expectations... it exceeded them in dramatic style. It is one of the few book adaptations where I didn't have a problem with any of the changes they made. In all films they have to change bits of the story and stuff to make it work. But so often they change things unnecessarily and that annoys me a bit. Narnia however worked all the better as a film as a result of the changes. I loved it. From the cinema the parents dropped us kids (quite a loose term now seeing as how two of us are over 18) off at the Foster's. There was Hazel, Suzi, Steven Jones and us three, and we all went and got fish and chips- yummy.



Then one of Hazel's friends from Ilford came down with a few guys from his youth group. We had lots of fun playing Mafia and then forty-forty in the park behind their house.

Saturday 24th December 2005

Christmas eve was a reasonable start for Jonathan and I as we were off to Russell square. We went to visit Nick. Nick was the friend I mentioned a while ago who had been diagnosed with a brain tumour. Well he has had the tumour removed and is doing remarkably well. He was released later that day to go home for Christmas. It all happened so quickly- him getting diagnosed, treated and released. God has been so good to him in the success of all of it. It was fantastic getting to see him (and the staples in his head!).
The evening was the traditional carol singing with some friends in the little drive next to ours.

Sunday 25th December 2005

Well this was of course Christmas day, so an early start to open stockings then breakfast all together, open a few presents then off to church. Our family generally does the worship on Christmas day and it was lovely to get to sing again. I had to get used to singing to a microphone and with fold back and stuff again- I haven't had anything like that for months. I got to see all my lovely friendsies- I love them all soooo much.



Then the obligatory ritual of over eating and then sleeping it off in the afternoon :)

Monday 26th December 2005

Boxing day for our family is always a walk on Wimbledon common,
lunch of chips, cold turkey and pickles and stuff like that, then open the last of the presents (we are so restrained) and play a game of star wars monopoly


and then flop in front of the telly.

Tuesday 27th December 2005

Tuesday I met up with my friend Lerys who I went to both high school and college with. We went for lunch in spoons and then wandered round some of the sales and just chatted. Lerys is one of those people with whom it never seems like any time has passed since we last saw each other. We always start chatting as if we were picking up a conversation we had just been having. All important information tents to be said in the chat and it's just lots of fun.
In the evening my second family came round for dinner. Hannah and Sarah Pierce have been my best friends for most of my life, Esther and Becca have been like my big sisters and Penny and Ced are a second set of parents. The whole lots of them as immensely special to me and I love seeing them. We ate lots of yummyness and then played silly games.

Wednesday 28th December 2005

Wednesday I had a very short visit to my little sister Pippa (I seem to adopt family all over the place don't I). Unfortunately it had to be quite short because we were expecting visitors but I couldn't not see her. Then it was coffee and a light lunch with the Gilberts. They day rounded off with a visit to my bunny. When I left for university my little bunny Truffle was regrettably left a bit neglected, so earlier this year he made a move to live with a family from church. They have four children and have the time to play with him and give him attention. It was nice to see him looking happier and not so lonely and they only live two roads away so whenever I'm back I can always pop in and see him.

Thursday 29th December 2005

Thursday saw the start of the Clarke family mammoth tour of the country. We drove for hours (when I saw we I mean mum and dad- I just slept!) until we were in the valleys of south Wales. It was of course time for the Pearce family gathering (that's my mum's side btw). So we had: grandpa, his wife Lucy, Lucy's brother graham, grahams wife Cath, mum's brother Steven and Steven's wife Chris, Steven's son (my cousin) Andrew, Lucy’s son Steven, Lucy’s daughter Rachel, Rachel's husband Gary and two kids Joseph and Jacob, Gwen and Tefor (friends of grampa's) and then us! My word my family has got a bit complicated!
So we all sat and chatted, ate, watched the snow falling outside, played in the snow and watched the boys have snow ball fights.

We even had a visit from father Christmas!!!

Finally we made our way back down to Cardiff to stay the night with my mums aunt and uncle- Marjorie and Bruce. We also got to see two of their three boys, Michael and Christopher, oh and Michael's two lovely little dogs- Tess and Milly.

Friday 30th December 2005

Friday morning as we were eating breakfast at Marjorie and Bruce’s we were watching the news
"Drivers are being warned to postpone their journey if possible as weather is predicted to worsen"
"Sections of the A1079 are impassable as last night's snow drifts across the road"
"Around 200 cars are having to be dug out, after being stranded by snow in east Yorkshire"
"Fatal accident- man killed in icy conditions in east Yorkshire"

I'll give you three guesses where our next stop was going to be.... East Yorkshire! In fact Pocklington which is on the A1079 (might be the wrong number but it was the same road talked about on the news) only about 5 miles from where all of there problems seemed to be!
However with the rain washing all hint of snow away in Wales we decided to risk it. We were mildly confused when a few hours later we did manage to make it to Yorkshire, yes there was some snow on the ground but the roads were fine- not a single problem! Oh well we were not going to complain, we were there save and sound.
So our second night on the road was spent with my mum's other brother Alyn and his family.

Deb is a fantastic cook so we of course we fed up to our eyeballs- especially Jonathan who failed to realise that the first dish served was only the starter!

Saturday 31st December 2005

On leaving Alyn and Deb's it was off back down south a bit to have lunch with some friends. The Corries used to come to our church in London, but moved up near Leeds years ago. It was a bit strange I haven't seen them for ages and when we arrived I did more than just a little double take. Their youngest daughter Lizzie looks almost exactly like her sister Sarah did when I last saw them- it was bizarre. Another lovely treat while we were eating was that we got to see a red kite flying over their garden. Red kites are really rare and so pretty.
Next it was over to the other side of Leeds to Ottly and dad's side of the family.
Here I got to meet my little cousin for the first time. Well actually she is the daughter of my cousin, so I think she is my second cousin. Great uncle Tim was soon there having a cuddle.

Then the eating began, a full Christmas dinner with crackers and everything. Unusually the crackers also came with party hooters, the kind that unravel hoot and then roll up again as you blow. Everyone had a good 5 minutes of blowing away making such a noise. Amazingly Eva (the baby) slept through the entire thing, even though she was in her carry chair right next to the table! When she finally woke up she got to join in wearing daddy's hat

After dinner came the trail of staying awake. Not only had we just pogged out on dinner, but it was new years eve- so we had to all stay awake. So we played Charades. This got some fantastic results. Keith loves doing 'sounds like' and we ended up with:
"Mothering tights"
"The far wind cheetah road"
the second one in case you can't work it out was the da Vinci code!
Then we played Mafia a couple of times (I love this game, if you don't know how to play let me know and I will explain all- it is such a fun game). Tammy made a good suggestion which actually was really fun- everyone created a role for themselves before we started. This made it easier when it came to defending ourselves because we had a partial story already, it also gave us some more interesting reasons for accusing villagers as we could, for example, say that it was the butcher as he is skilled at cutting up meat... it worked well.
Then a couple of rounds of karaoke on the play station before switching on big Ben, singing old langsyne (declaring once again that we really should learn the words one day) and watching the fireworks both on the TV and out the window.
Finally bed.

Sunday 1st January 2006

A nice lazy get up and breakfast which only finished at about 12. Then we wrestled ourselves into coats hats and boots drive up to Ilky moor and had a good old walk.

Once we got back it was time to pack up the car, say our good byes and head back home.

On the way back we saw one of the most stunning sunsets I've ever seen. The clouds were doing all sorts of interesting things and the colours lighting them up were so strong
(picture taken through the window of a moving car, so doesn’t really show what it was like)
It was one of those things that made me wish I was the poetic sort. I just felt that something that impressive really deserved to have beautiful words said about it. However I am not particularly poetic so I will not subject you to any attempts.

Monday 2nd January 2006

Monday- my final day in good old England was not as eventful as some. Mum and I went to Tesco so I could pick up some blackcurrant squash (there is nothing like it is you are feeling ill. I don't think I could have survived having the flu if I hadn't brought some back from my trip to Guildford). Then joys of joy my friend Terri came round for coffee. I love seeing Terri and was so glad that I managed to fit it in before I left.
My lovely mum had washed pretty much all my clothes for me, so I sat down to watch a film called Napoleon Dynamite while doing the ironing. My brothers were raving about this film when they came over to visit. They thought it was just the funniest thing ever. I have to say I didn't really get it. It had some amusing bits but... well not really the kind of film I would normally watch. Catch me if you can which we all sat down to watch that evening was much more to my taste- in fact I have that one on DVD!

Tuesday 3rd January 2006

Goodbye dear England, off to waterloo, then Paris and finally I found myself back in my room in the foyer. It was an easy journey and really uneventful.
And there was my holiday gone!
Back to work now