Happy Christmas!

Just sneaking in a quick post to send family, friends and everyone else, our warmest good wishes for a very happy Christmas, and a happy and peaceful 2019. After very many years of masterminding our family Christmases I suddenly find myself in the most delightful (and hugely appreciated) situation when everyone else seems to have taken over, most efficiently and affectively. My quite frequent offers to help have been dealt with tactfully, but firmly in the negative, even my offer to peel the potatoes… So, trying not to wonder if perhaps my darling family have come to a quiet agreement that mother really is past it, and is to be kept away from the action at all costs, I accept gracefully and have jumped at the chance to sit quietly apart, and write a Christmas note to you all. This year our combined Raine/Fuller-Sessions families have gathered in London for Christmas, and we are extremely lucky to have been lent a most spacious, comfortable house by some very generous friends of daughter Ruthie. Happily gathered here are both sets of grandparents, six grownup ‘young’ including daughter Sara who has flown over from Australia and the nearly 18-month old Nell who keeps us all charmingly entertained, and helps bring down the average age quite considerably. We all gathered on Christmas Eve, which was spent with last minute preparations, and a last minute shopping expedition with Nick, mainly for food but the odd stocking filler as well. Incidentally, I was mildly amused to see I was heavily outnumbered by other anxious looking men as well as Nick, who were deperatately trawling round (probably rather manly) kitchen equipment shops, looking for inspiration presumably for their (probably female) partners. Bored children trailed behind them, occasionally making obviously inappropriate and unhelpful suggestions, no doubt in an unsuccessful effort to speed things up. And to be serious for a moment, how lucky we all are! I do realise that. We are so aware that there are many perhaps facing a particularly lonely and dismal and maybe hungry ‘festive season’, and who knows what lies ahead, for any of us in these uncertain times?  And on a very practical basic level, I am  struggling with WordPress who have so updated and improved themselves that I find myself quite confused and perplexed and struggling to perform the most basic of tasks which I normally could do without thinking. Hence the lateness and lack of photos. Such frustrations aside, we send our very sincere good wishes for a happy Christmas holiday to anyone who may be reading this and for a 2019 as peaceful and uncontroversial (politically) as is possible, and personally happy and healthy.