The Day after Boxing Day

I thought Christmas was supposed to be a break. A time to relax and eat Quality Street at 7am while watching kids films on TV. Not for me. I have had family over on Christmas Day and again on Boxing Day with  four relatives staying overnight. It has been a time of sorting out spare beds and fresh bed linen, cooking  three course meals and washing up pots and pans afterwards. Organising cooked breakfasts, making endless cups of tea and coffee and feeling exhausted.

The day after Boxing Day I was up at 5.30am while everyone else slept in until 9.30am. In those 4 hours it felt like I had hosed the house down to get it looking reasonably clean and tidy. By 11am four  of us were at The Lowry shopping outlet and filling our shopping bags. I am predictable. I had to  go to Clintons to fill my bags with half price Christmas themed Yankee Candles. I bought 6 boxes of tealights as I have nearly finished all the boxes I bought there this time last year. They were half price £6.99 down to £3.49 a box. I bought 2 boxes of Christmas Cookie, two of Snowflake Cookie and one each of Christmas Eve and Fireside Treats.

I also treated myself to a large jar candle in Christmas cookie which was half price at £10.99 instead of £21.99 and medium sized candle in Fireside Treats again half price at £8.99 instead of £17.99.

We then hit the clearance section of the Marks & Spencer store and I found these sparkly sliders from their Autograph range at £9. I have bought these specifically for wearing in the evening on summer holidays. They are comfortable, practical but with just a hint of glamour for the evening. I found a fabulous pair of black boots for David at £14 and was amazed to find that these are current stock at full price £79. He is really pleased with them.

I also bought two bras at just £3 each. These were the only two in my size on a rack of around 100 bras so they took some rummaging to find. David always says how amazed he is with my patience and systematic checking of just about every item to find what I am looking for. I guess to get a bargain you do need patience and you must invest a reasonable amount of time to find a bargain. He can't be bothered with it all but is happy for me to find them for him.

I also bought a snugly thermal vest for my Dad for £6 and this will be put aside for him for his birthday in March. He will be 78 next year and has started to shrink in size and stature so feels the cold more than he used to.

It was then on to Waitrose towards the end of the day to see if they had any reductions. They had half price boxes of mixed biscuits at between £1.50 and £2 a box. I selected three types and bought two boxes of each. They are best before July so there is plenty time for them to be eaten. I think I will give one box to my Dad as part of his birthday gift. I also found bags of mini chocolate orange pieces for 50p and David's favourite jelly babies (jelly Santa version) for 66p bag - they were all half price.

Finally I had a look on-line at the M&S sale. I had already looked on Boxing Day and could not find anything I liked or needed but when I looked this time I found a long line waterfall cardigan that will look great over dresses for work or as a throw-on over trousers or jeans worn casual. I couldn't make up mind whether to buy the red one or camel one so I went a little crazy and bought both.

Weekend Achievements

So as expected it has been a busy but enjoyable weekend with only 4 days to go to Christmas Day by the end of the weekend. 

I wrote all my Christmas cards first thing Saturday morning and I know I am so late this year writing them all. I had to find extra cards as our lovely next-door-neighbours are moving so I wanted to get them and our new neighbours New Home cards aswell as Christmas cards. I am so sorry to lose our lovely neighbours as we have lived next to them for over 10 years now. I wish them all the best with their new home. Such a shame to lose them and I hope our new neighbours will be as equally as lovely.

I spent a fair amount of time cleaning the house and getting it ready for Christmas guests. I freshened up the candles in the house and used these cute snowball ones from Partylite in our lounge and these tealight holders with cutaway snowflakes. These were also from Partylite but of course I did not buy them from Partylite themselves but from carboot sales at a much cheaper price.

I organised the living room and dining room by finishing off the decorations, and getting table mats, napkins and votives ready. I have two white tablecloths with one on top of the other, so that after Christmas Day I can pull off the top cloth and there is a fresh clean one underneath. We tend not to be messy on Christmas Day but Boxing Day is another matter with seven of around the table usually getting rather merry and there are usually spillages.

I shopped at Marks & Spencers Friday evening and Waitrose Saturday evening and managed to bag bargains at both from the clearance counter. Marks & Spencer bargains were two packs of their Special Selection pigs in blankets reduced from £4 to 90p and stuffing balls also at 90p. I bought four packs of "chefs" carrots at 35p each and blanched them on Saturday morning and then froze them. I will roast these along with parsnips for our two Christmas dinners. They also had two bags of satsumas reduced from £2 to 30p, a ready stuffed Oakham chicken at half price £3.50 and cod and Dover sole at 60 - 75% off. They worked out at £2.15 and £2.45 a pack instead of £6 and £9.50.

I bought a 300g pack of cranberries which were on a half price offer and made my own cranberry sauce. This is so easy to do and I used a Waitrose recipe to make it. I put the cranberries in a pan along with the juice of a satsuma made up with water to 150ml. The recipe is to use clementine juice but I used the satsuma instead. Simmer for 5 minutes until the berries start to burst and then add 75g of light muscavodo sugar (I used Demerara - I use substitutes all the time in recipes) and simmer until the sauce becomes thick. Leave to cool and this keeps for around a week in the fridge.

Waitrose had a half price side of salmon from £16 to £8 (for New Year's Day lunch) and I bought 3 packs of 6 reduced Yorkshire puddings. For some reason this year I have had a hankering for Yorkshire puddings with my Christmas dinner which is something I have never done before.

David had his Christmas party with his co-workers on Saturday night which was a casino evening at a local hotel. I dropped him off at a nearby Belgium bar for him to have pre drinks (known as prinks in our family) to meet his colleagues. He was after a lift home but I'm tired by 10pm and I knew he would be later than this so he said would get a taxi home but luckily he got a lift home from one of his colleagues. We managed to avoid Christmas 'dos' last year as we were away but this year it is only me who has managed to escape the enforced jollity. I know this makes me sound "Bah Humbug" but December is a busy month for us and I think I spend enough time already with the people from work without going on an expensive do with them. Am I being a Grinch?

Roll On Weekend

After such a relaxing break last weekend I seem to have come back to Earth with a bump and a very busy week and all I can think is Roll On Weekend when I should get some time to myself to get on with the Christmas preparation.

We went to my work's Christmas Carol Service this week at Manchester Cathedral and what a magical night it was. I took David and my father and we went for a quick bite to eat before hand. We went to Pizza Express as a pizza is a quick and easy meal at 5.30pm plus I had a voucher from them for a free bottle of Prosecco because it was my birthday last week. The wine would have cost us £20.95 so that was a lovely gift from Pizza Express and it tasted delicious too although it was only a half glass for me as I was driving.

The Christmas markets are getting bigger and better in Manchester and this stall stood out for me as it was beautiful with rotating wooden figurines and at least 40ft tall. We wandered around the market for a few moments enroute between the restaurant and the cathedral. We didn't buy anything because we don't need anything and I feel lucky to be in a position to say that.

"Wow" is all I can say about the Carol service. It was bigger and better than previous years and I have been to many of them over the 25 years that I have worked for my current employers. There was a brass band, a "big" band and what I can only call a German style oompah band.  We started with the national anthem and it felt so patriotic. We had one of the Cathedral choristers singing "Walking in the Air" and of course plenty of carols for us to sing.

The big band brought some suprises to the service with two lead female vocalists,  one male vocalist who was like Michael Buble and also three backing singers. They upped the tempo with "Santa Clause Is Coming To Town", "Jingle Bells" and "Let it Go" along with some other unexpected songs - "River Deep, Mountain High" and "Never Can Say Goodbye"!!

We had another female vocalist who sang "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen accompanied solely by an acoustic guitar. It was so beautiful that it brought a tear to my eye. The Oompah band had us all swaying in our seats to "Schneewalzer". The brass band was just fantastic and to sing the carols to their accompaniment was just magical. What a thoroughly enjoyable evening it was that got us all in the festive spirit.

For the second time in two weeks I have had a bouquet of flowers delivered to my home today from colleagues from work after having surgery three weeks ago. I did not take one day off sick and used my own time to attend hospital but was allowed to work from home for two weeks to recover. I am so grateful that they have sent flowers when I haven't been off work for long. How humbling it is to realise what fantastic colleagues I have. To be honest I would have scared staff had I gone into work as the bandages and stitches looked worse than it was. My face is nearly back to how it used to be but I still need another operation in January to help it get back to normal.

I have been wrapping up some little stocking fillers to add to everyone's Christmas bags. They are mainly freebies or items from around the house which I know sounds weird but they are the kind of things that are great as little nothings to open in addition to people's main presents. There are little Nutella packs wrapped in ribbon for my nephew and niece and small pots of honey for my dad. They were unwanted items on our breakfast tray from our weekend break. 

I had two mugs that are being re-gifted from last year to my sister and brother-in-law. (I have dozens of mugs) I have filled them with a pack each of Thorntons chocolates and tied festive bows on the handles and popped them in festive bags.  Whenever there is ribbon around, someone wakes up and wants to help.

Another Lazy Day

After doing very little on Sunday we had another lovely meal at the Portmeirion hotel restaurant in the evening. We decided to visit Castell Deudraeth for Mondays evening meal. There are two hotels at Portmeirion Village and they are at opposite ends of the site. Castell Deudraeth has more bistro style food than the hotel restaurant and we fancied a change. 

Sunday nights meal was as beautiful as ever with a little bit of artistic drama with the desert. We both chose the same food for all three courses and we plumped for a starter of Tartar of Welsh beef with parsley caviar, Marmite egg yolk & charcoal emulsion. Pretentious or what? Followed by Halibut, aubergine caviar, king prawns, black olive braised potatoes and coconut. We were given an amuse bouche of scrambled egg with caviar and smoked salmon. This was delicious as was the halibut main course but the Welsh beef tartar dish tasted too much of charcoal. The beef was beautiful but overwhelmed by a burnt charcoal taste (I forgot to take a photo of this dish)

For desert we both had a chocolate & Grand Marnier tart with blood orange sorbet. A round chocolate dome was in the centre of my bowl when it arrived and was not what I was expecting as I thought it would be a flat slice of tart. The waitress then produced what looked a perfume atomiser and sprayed the chocolate dome and set it alight. A foot high flame was produced and made the chocolate warm and gooey - delicious. The photo I took does not quite catch the flame but it was pretty dramatic. 

We had been looking at the desert wines when we ordered the chocolate tarts and could not believe the price of a half bottle of wine - £400? Should it be £40? No it really was £400 and after surfing  the internet I found that there are other vintages for £5,000 - £10,000. I would not enjoy any glass of wine at this price as I would be mentally counting the cost of each sip. Who pays that much for a half bottle of wine? 

We strolled around the village Monday morning after breakfast and before the day visitors arrived. It is lovely to have the place to ourselves and walk through all the gates and doorways that say 'Residents Only' as you get to take in views and see areas of the buildings that you can't as a day visitor. I used to visit the village many years ago and dream of staying here. Now we come every year and just love it. 

There were gardeners out pruning the shrubs, other sweeping up leaves and cleaning the tops of benches and tables. It is immacutely well kept and a joy to walk around. At the bottom of the hill where the moored boat is I 'face timed' my father-in-law who lives in France to show him the view across the estuary and up to the top of the village. I asked "guess where we are" and he immediately said Portmeirion. I knew he would as we have visited here as a family for over 40 years. I have photographs of me in the gardens aged about six. 

We called into a couple of charity shops in Porthmadog and I bought 4 as new books for 50p each. Three are by one of my favourite authors, M C Beaton and they are from the Hamish Macbeth series (I normally go for the Agatha Raisin series). The fourth book is a hardback copy of Miranda Harts book Is it me? I think she is very talented and incredibly funny so I am looking forward to reading this. I also spent £2 on a DVD which is more than I usually pay but I do like any film that has Colin Firth in it so it was paid for and in my bag pronto.

Castell Deudraeth has the most fantastic crackling fire in the hall area where we sat having pre dinner drinks. The restaurant itself is just off the hall in a large and airy orangery and when we arrived a young guy (who turned out to be a guest) was playing the grand piano beautifully.

I had moules marinierre which were beautiful and served with toasted soda bread. Mains for both us was a ribeye steak with proper chips, watercress and rocket salad and bernaise sauce. We had a cheese board between us for desert. It was a lovely change to have large portions of simple food instead of lots of very fancy dishes.

After another cooked breakfast with the cutest little bottles of raspberry and banana smoothie with set off home at 11am.

We had the most fantastic break and will be visiting again next year for another 4 day/3 night stay. Where do you go for your weekend mini breaks?