Christmas Cheer and what to call the New Year

Right, can I just get something off my ample chest? Something that really bugs me?

What year are we in? What year will it be on January 1st?

It's now 2014 and then it will be 2015, of course. But how do you say those years?

I guess you say two thousand and fourteen and will then welcome the New Year by saying "Happy two thousand and fifteen" over a glass or two of champers.

Right?

But is it right? Really?

We all used to call 1999 "nineteen ninety nine".....as did Prince or AFKAP or whatever the heck he is now known as.

Then we kinda had to refer to 2000 as two thousand as it wouldn't sound right to say "twenty hundred". But once you get to 2009 and have called it two thousand and nine, you should then leap to "twenty ten" and "twenty eleven" and so on.

Because I was born in 1975 (I know, an utter spring chicken), it was "nineteen seventy five" and never ever "one thousand nine hundred and seventy five".

OK, what are your thoughts? Let me know. But I am calling the new year "twenty fifteen" cos that's what it is.

Moving on, cos my brain is getting a little addled with numbers now, how was Christmas?

Ours was wonderful, once again spent at my parents. We went to Christmas carols at the church where we married, tucked the children up in bed and then tucked into gin and cheese and then Christmas Day was wonderful. It zoomed by. We were Merry, games were played, the children's happy faces warmed my heart and I thought of those who were no longer with us, and silently raised a glass in honour of them all.

Here are the highlights and hey, Merry Twenty Fifteen darlings.

Firstly, Sweet Child turned one on December 23rd. We enjoyed a sweet little birthday tea party at my sister's on Christmas Eve but I don't have photos of her to show off yet. She wore a Rose pink floral frock and looked adorable. I shall show you in a future blog post.

She has been walking for a few weeks and struts around in these little darlings:

And here was our Christmas.

Now, where did I put that final tub of Quality Street?

News in brief

And so here I am on this cheery Friday morning, washing my husband's pants and wondering how life got to be this good...

Actually it's an improvement on yesterday. Yesterday was a slog. I had three ill children, all whinging for Calpol, or wiping their noses on their sleeves and spluttering in my face.....which really bugs me and I had to boil my husband's football socks for half an hour in the same saucepan I needed to cook dinner in. Gah!

The boiling socks saga was totally my fault, but I shall blame him a little. He comes home from football with a billion tiny black particles of rubber attached to his socks, from the all weather pitch they play on. I tend to go mad because they all end up all over the floors in every room in the house and I end up finding them in our bed, in the washing machine,  in the loo (how?) and under the table.

And so this time I chucked them out in the garden to deal with at Another Time.

Another Time didn't happen as soon as I had hoped because every child got ill with the high temp virus. The one I am trying to fight but feel it may be a losing battle.

But yesterday the time came; a small window of opportunity to wash the football socks. And then I saw them....slugs all over them from where they had been in the garden all week. Leeches. Baby wood lice. Dead spiders. And scary creatures I can't even identify, that wouldn't have been out of place in I'm a Celebrity.

So I carried them in with chopsticks, while the baby watched me as if I was completely mad, and boiled them to death. The socks and the creatures. I think a lot of creatures were semi dead anyway, from living in his sweaty socks for a week.

Then I carefully picked off all creatures with the chopsticks and put them on the bird table to cheer my poor feathered birds up in this gloomy weather and washed the socks in the machine.

Think I prefer all the black rubber particles everywhere to be honest. Slimy, wriggly things ain't my bag.

And so the husband pant washing event is actually a damn sight nicer and there are no chopsticks involved.

Because the kids have been ill for weeks, I haven't been to many cherry tree shops, however, I was DELIGHTED when I spotted this Gabrielle Parker floral wrap dress.....in my size......for £4. I love it. It's a true bargain.

In other news, the baby, she who is better known as Sweet Child, is walking and trying to run and trying to open doors and escape...

The other two are slowly recovering. This was taken before heading to the beach, the week before they fell ill.

And the dear Sweet Child has had her first Christmas party at a toddler group which she loved.

I want to end this by apologising to those who kindly emailed me and I haven't had the chance to reply yet, but I will. 

Once I have tackled the pants.

Then I will email you briefly.

BRIEFly.........

Geddit?