We woke up at half seven to find just three hungry cats waiting for us, so we fed them and made breakfast. We had planned on maybe heading up to London to snap the empty streets, but the heavy rain forecast really put paid to that. I put on a Christmas radio show and Jools began to make her Lego VW campervan. Some three days later she's still doing it, but it is nearly done.
So we sat around in our PJs listening to the radio just chilling. At half eleven i put the turkey in the oven and prepared the veg. Soon the house was filled with the wonderful small of the cooking turkey. On the crack of two I dished the dinner up; turkey, roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, sprouts, cauli, broccoli, leeks, pigs in blankets and lots of gravy.
Needless to say, it was rather wonderful. Whilst cooking, I opened the large bottle of Danish Christmas beer, which went down very well. I opened the last bottle of Old Crafty hen to wash dinner down with; needless to say by the time we finished dinner, we had a lay down and I managed to snooze the rest of the afternoon away.
Boxing Day we got up at the crack of sparrahs so we could head up into deepest Suffolk to visit Mum. I think travelling on the 26th was a great idea, as the roads were so quiet, almost nothing else on the M20, and we were able to dive right up to the barriers of the tolls at Dartford, and then into Essex, up the equally quiet A12 and into country I know so well.
Saying that, I don't know it as well as I thought, as I am now a connoisseur of churches, I now realise I had not been inside that many of them; so each time we go up we visit a couple on the way to Lowestoft. We stopped at Farnham, Saxmundham and Kelsale, all of which looked wonderful in the early morning winter sunshine.
In the end we arrived in Lowestoft just after ten. We drove up London Road South instead of through Oulton Broad as I realised I had not been that way for years, and Jools had not seen it at all. All was quiet, and soon we were passing over the harbour bridge, pass the station and back round to Normanstone Park and onto Mum's.
I won't bore you with the details, it was good natured and for a change did not spill over into bitter exchanges as the elephants in the room went unmentioned. She allowed me to search her house for a couple of old photo albums, which I did find, along with hundreds of family shots, and so I was very happy indeed. All I have to now is to scan them all, which will take some time.
We left at two, stopping off at a pub in the hope of bumping into an old friend, but he did not turn up, so we headed south stopping only to have a snack at KFC. By the time we got to Ipswich, rain began to fall, and all the way home it hammered down, and made driving most uncomfortable. but we got over the bridge at Dartford and into Kent. I eased up on the speed as we had only 60 miles to go, and so we arrived home at half five, just in time to feed the cats and put the kettle on and finish up the final two slices of Christmas cake.
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