Christmas Day II

The bird

Was still snow on the ground see!

Final 5 minute call rush...

All done, sitting down to enjoy...

All 100% gluten free, hurrah!

All over for another year...

Christmas Day

Morning everyone... Merry Christmas!

This wasn't breakfast... honest!

It must be Christmas... the hostess trolley is out!

No big tree this year... couldn't be bovved (bah humbug). But we tastefully arranged the presents around the rebounder instead.

Present opening shot...

Surprise! Dinner Ladies DVD thanks Sarah!

... "Tell my face I mean it" I know... sorry these action shots are hard to do :) Thanks Sarah, my books on improving my memory and learning Norwegian (10 mins a day) are all part of the 2010 plan.

Whoops... how did that get in there? A present destined for Norway (from Amazon) got mixed up in the pile... caused momentary confusion and made us laugh anyway.. ha!

Swinton branch checking in.

Thanks Matty - the yoga DVD is brilliant - looking forward to getting on with that too when I get back to London. Choccies arrived from Thorntons too (yum) and Mum's eastern philosophies book looks v interesting (sorry not documented I was reading my book and not paying attention - naughty - points deducted for bad Norwegian style present opening :)

Christmas Eve Baking

Well to complete our micro-Christmas at No3 we will need a selection of gluten free treats, especially as I have convinced Mum to try the old GF diet for a few months.

Off to work... Its a packet mix of pastry but it still involved a bit of work.

Pastry in the fridge resting. Move onto GF shortbread experiment. (A) normal recipe with GF flour, (B) as above but with magic psyllium husk addition

Trying to be arty farty

(A) and (B)

Back to the pastry now for mince pies...

With the end products

(A)

(B)

They really look the same colour just my lighting in the kitchen was different... just in case you are wondering the psyllium husk is a big bonus to the final product... much less crumbly and falling apart.

You can barely tell the difference (after smothering them with thick brandy cream)

Christmas Eve

A quick Christmas eve morning coffee meeting with the Worsley crew down at Broadoak Garden Centre...

Anthony Singh and little Jack Singh

Me with newly introduced Lily Naran Taylor (Caroline's daughter). She was so good and slept in my arms for a good hour or so... I've had a bit of practice these days and not so scared of babies anymore :)

Couple of shots of Josephine Betty Horn, Heidi's new addition.

Swinton Snowage

OK time to follow suit with I&I and the return to blogging... A six month hiatus has been a step too far as so much has happened that has not been recorded in the blogosphere. Oddly I have many pictures on my blog but only in draft state so not available to public view... after publishing this I will attempt to put some words into a few of them and continue my roll.

I am now installed at No3 for 2 weeks of Xmas R&R and not a moment too soon! Today it appears that all major forms of transportation have been suspended due to "the wrong kind of snow" and getting from A to B has become rather treacherous. A trip to see Nanna has been postponed until Thursday, hoping for better conditions. We managed to get out for a walk around Worsley today instead and took a few snaps.

Backblog

OK so heres the Summer 2009 backblog... Ive been using Mums new Mac which has the latest iPhoto version that I haven't really used yet - it has a nifty feature to recognise faces for you so I've been training it and putting it through its paces... after inputting a few faces it starts to recognise people...

Yep...


Yep again...



Yep yep yep!



Well not really... but I can see where you're coming from...

Awww... no it's little Matty!

More training to come - soon I will have trained it to do all my blogging for me too! Hurray!

New and very old

Old man Trigger was interested in the camera again - or perhaps he wanted me to swoosh away those flies! He's a very friendly old fella anyway...

Bubbles is a fine figure of a horse and struck a great pose here I thought

This is the new addition Bluebell or Blue for short. She is a very cute little pony and once she has spent a few years out in the field will be a great little ride for a nice young rider - another of Adams rescues that were destined for the knacker yard!

Phew at last - a bit of shade and some eye protection - must be heaven.

Up at the local agricultural college two more of Adam's horses spend their lives educating the local countryfolk... Travis was is the stable today with a swollen leg whilst all the others were out playing in the field... boring!

Inspecting the problem... nothing major apparently but nothing a good walk out in the field wouldn't sort out.

His buddy Red was out in the field and loved a few carrot treats that Adam smuggled up there

Star attraction Rebel the racehorse was off for a run at another Sunday meeting - he know's where he's going and gets very excitable