First week of Advent

 After expressing some frustration at November being much warmer than usual, December is finally showing some signs of autumn, if not the beginnings of winter. We still haven't had our central heating boiler serviced, but perhaps this coming week we should...

My only gesture towards Christmas before December was to make our Christmas cake, as mentioned in the previous post. I still have half of last year's mincemeat in the fridge, and since I can't find suet (veggie or otherwise) in the supermarkets, I'm researching different suet-free Christmas puddings. Recommendations welcome. It's probably a good thing, as I'm pretty sure our usual veggie suet is one of those ultra-processed products that we're supposed to avoid. 

But November 30th was the first Sunday in Advent. I made soup for the first time since March, to share with our friends who have a meal with us every other Sunday. I wasn't sure if it was really cold enough for soup, but everyone appreciated it. 

I did also start reading a couple of different Advent 'plans' on the Bible app that I use. The 'plans' are quite variable in quality, so I tend to read more than one at a time. 

On Monday, I bought some stamps and Christmas cards. I also sent out one card (to a friend in the United States), and we collected the first card of the season from our PO Box. 

In the afternoon I went to the local reading group pre-Christmas gathering, where we all took food to share. 

In the evening, Richard and I walked along the sea-front and admired the lights:

Advent Sunday

I can remember having an Advent calendar as a child. It was usually a cardboard affair, with a scene of the Nativity, or shepherds, perhaps, in bright colours, sometimes with glitter.  We opened one little window each day during December, with the final one being the 24th, usually - Christmas Eve - with a larger window, and a manger scene. It used to puzzle me why that didn't appear on the 25th until I realised that, of course, Christmas Day is no longer Advent.

I used to love my Advent calendar. Sometimes we had a family one, and took it in turns to open the little windows, but at least a couple of times I had one of my own. I knew what was coming, but I loved the anticipation, nevertheless: the reminders of the background to the Christmas story, leading up to the Nativity. 

By the time my sons were small, Advent calendars had become more secular. We tried to get 'religious' themed ones, but it was quite difficult. Advent calendars were more likely to have jolly Santa figures, or Christmas trees - a countdown to Christmas, certainly, but really nothing to do with Advent.  At least once someone gave us one with chocolates inside, which seemed even more of a bad idea, giving extra sugar to children who were already excited about Christmas coming. 

Nowadays, of course they have become almost entirely commercialised. It's possible to get Advent calendars with all kinds of gifts - with beauty products, or wine, or even cheese samples.  This, for instance, is a site that recommends the 'best' Advent calendars for 2020: I looked at the first few entries in the gallery, and the least expensive was over $30. 

Advent is a Latin word for 'coming', and is used to indicate the arrival of an important person or thing. So I suppose it makes sense for those of a non-religious persuasion to think of it as waiting for the arrival of Santa Claus. Which is all very well for children, but those expensive Advent calendars with perfumes or wine are not intended for the young. I suppose they have become an excuse for yet more spending in the festive season - and this year, with so many shops struggling, it's perhaps a good way to make money at last. 

Of course, most years Advent doesn't actually start on December 1st. And unlike Lent, Advent is not a fixed length of time.  There are four Sundays in Advent, so when Christmas is a Friday, as will happen this year, the fourth Sunday of Advent will be December 19th, and today - November 29th - is the first Sunday of Advent. 

In the Anglican Church, which is in our background and where we're now established again, Advent is the start of the church year. We were wished 'Happy new year' this morning in the church service.  The cloths on the table - and the clergy stoles - had changed to purple, and there was an empty scene under the table, waiting for the Nativity scene.

Naturally - it's traditional on the first Sunday of Advent one of the songs was 'O come, o come Emmanuel'. It's much loved by many, but I admit to finding it a bit dreary. On the other hand, I really like the more modern 'Christ be our Light', which was another of today's songs. 

There was a new Advent service sheet too, and an Advent wreath, which just about shows on the left of the photo above, in the middle. It has four candles, and the first one was lit today.

All symbolic, of course, and not everybody appreciates symbolism of this kind. But I find it helpful, and I like the progression of the church calendar.  In Advent we think about the first coming of Jesus, the one that is celebrated in Nativity plays and Christmas carols, but we also think about the second coming  - the end times - something that feels all the more real towards the end of this extremely difficult year. 

At home we don't currently have any purple candles, and I haven't seen any in the shops. I was thinking of buying a red one for Advent, but I couldn't find one I liked. Most candles in the shops currently are scented, and I really dislike candles with scents. They're not good for cats, either. But we had an unused white candle, so I put away the green one that's been on the table since we stopped using ceiling fans,  and started a new white one at lunch-time today: 

And as an aside, not relevant to Advent, today also happens to be a very important day in my family: my father's birthday. So my brother arranged a family Zoom call - the first time we've done this, though we plan to repeat it regularly - and it worked extremely well. 

The first two weeks of December in Cyprus

Over the years, Christmas preparation has become easier and more relaxed in our household.  It helps that I have become a tad more organised, and give myself a kind of timetable to get things done. It also helps that we keep it fairly low-key, on the whole, and - most of all - that all the gift shopping is done online.  With no children living at home, no stockings to organise, no grandchildren visiting this year, it's all quite straightforward.

Early in November, I made this year's Christmas cake.  Later in the month I made a batch of mincemeat and some Christmas puddings. I organised and ordered our photo calendars for next year in plenty of time, and also gifts for the family members who will be here in Cyprus.

December 1st, very neatly, was also the first Sunday in Advent.  We went to the morning service at the local church where we're becoming more involved and later I thought about what still had to be done. It seemed remarkably little.

Ten years ago, I wrote and posted at least eighty Christmas cards, mostly to the UK, as well as family newsletters.  Gradually we started moving to email for many of our correspondents, and have lost touch with others. This year, we only sent thirty cards, mostly to family and very long-standing friends in the UK. We also decided, for the first time in thirty years, not to do a 'round robin' newsletter.

On Fridays we use the morning for what we loosely call 'house admin' - in theory doing any odd jobs that we wouldn't otherwise get around to. But more often than not, we do our grocery shopping and check our PO Box, and most of the morning is used up.  However, on December 6th, I had a strange urge to visit this large shop:

Yes, a lot of what it sells is rather tacky.  But although I don't in general like shopping, it's kind of fun to browse through the kitchen section, amusing ourselves by pointing out all the things we would never buy, and even considering one or two that we might (but don't need).

The Christmas section is huge, and there were plenty of things that didn't tempt us in the slighest.  A dancing Santa and tree, for instance:

There were a lot of quite attractive decorations too, some of which might have tempted us if we hadn't had two lively cats who would probably destroy them. Unfortunately they only had one kind of Christmas crackers; we had almost run out of our supply from the UK, and I had thought Jumbo would be a good source. We did buy one pack from there but they were a bit gaudy looking.

We also emerged with a sort of snowflake star and a string of LED lights for our tree, some cushion covers for my study and one or two other bits and pieces. But we were mostly quite restrained.

December is the only time of year we go to Jumbo, and it made me feel as if the countdown had truly begun.  We bought stamps and posted the cards, too.  And bought some more crackers at Metro, which had a much better selection than Jumbo.

Later in the day, I started ordering Christmas presents for family members in the UK.  We all have Amazon wish-lists so it's easy to do, and I send them directly.  It's not quite the same in that I don't get to wrap them - but I'm very happy not to have to go to any real shops to buy them.

On Sunday 8th December, the second Sunday in Advent, we went with our friends to the Christingle service. A local choir was taking part, and it was a friendly, enjoyable service.  Several people had prepared large numbers of Christingles the day before, so we all collected them, with the candles lit, and then sang 'Away in a Manger' by candlelight.

While many people ate the raisins and sweets afterwards, I decided to keep ours in the fridge for a few days and then use it as a decoration until the orange starts to go bad:

The following day it was the last meeting of the year for the local Christian writers' group, followed by our annual Christmas bring-and-share (potluck) lunch.  Twelve of us were there, and as always there was an excellent spread of food:

I suppose there's a lot of comfort in familiar traditions such as this.  And on Tuesday morning, another annual tradition was followed.  I got out our modest supply of decorations:

One of my young friends set up the Nativity scene, with the addition of some tinsel and a former Christmas tree star.  The figure at the back, lying down, was supposed to be the third shepherd. But I didn't make a staff for him.  So my small friend announced that it must be the innkeeper, not a shepherd at all.  And she also decreed that he should be asleep.  I suppose he probably was, when Jesus was born...

The Kings, of course, should be further away but we always put them all together.

Each year we send and receive fewer and fewer Christmas cards, but I keep those from previous years (many of which don't arrive until January anyway) and hang them up in a couple of places.  And my young friends (two of whom are no longer small) not only assembled the tree without help, but decorated it too.

Later in the day, I ordered the last of the Christmas presents for family members in the UK.

On Wednesday, we had an appointment at Immigration, where - in theory - our permanent residency was granted.  We have to wait up to three months for the actual paperwork to come through.

On Thursday we went to a pleasant and thoughtful advent meditation/discussion at the vicarage, followed by another potluck lunch.  Thursday was also the UK general election date. We're not eligible to vote, but we did hope the result might be different from what transpired.  However, this is not a political blog, so I will refrain from further comment on that topic.

On Saturday 14th, we celebrated 40 years since we got engaged, 42 years since our first date.  We went out to lunch in the pouring rain, and had to park in the Marina as Larnaka was packed with shoppers, most of whom had cars.  We had decided to go to the friendly, low-key 'To Kafe' restaurant, which was the other end of the town, but the rain mostly abated while we walked there.  We celebrated in burgers (a veggie one for me) and then discovered that they had a 'fasting' carrot cake (ie dairy free) so Richard had that, and I had a very delicious (and decadent) lemon cheesecake:

As an added bonus, our friends had been able to get tickets for a local ballet school production of 'The Nutcracker' at the Municipal Theatre.  I don't think I've ever seen it live before; the scenery was excellent, and the whole thing was most enjoyable.

Then on Sunday, among other things, I made our first batch of mince pies:

We finished them today so I shall make more tomorrow, along with a few other goodies. On Thursday evening our younger son arrives to stay for a week, and that's when we'll feel as if the Christmas period has truly begun.

Christmas Eve and our latest newsletter

Continuing the theme of a fairly low-key Christmas, I didn't make mincemeat or Christmas puddings this year, because we still had some left from last year. I did make mince pies earlier this week, and our usual traditional Christmas lunch is currently in the oven, to be cut and refrigerated tonight, re-heated tomorrow along with cooking roast potatoes and carrots and brussels sprouts, and so on.

I iced our cake yesterday, but since it looks much the same as it always does, though rather less tidy (since I put marzipan only on the top) I haven't taken a photo yet.

Thank you so much to all who were concerned and prayed for our granddaughter Esther after my last post; within a few days she was home and free from infection, so we are very thankful and relieved. They are remaining in the UK for Christmas, with other relatives visiting.

Meanwhile our tree has continued to suffer from the cats' enthusiasm. Alex looks rather pleased with himself here:

It's currently standing, however, and has done for a couple of days, so perhaps they have finally lost interest.

One entirely new thing that happened this year was that Richard was co-opted as 'Santa' for a couple of performances of 'The Snowman' by Little Muse Theatre.  I didn't see the show this year, not having a small child to take, but I gather it went well. He wondered if our grandson would have recognised him; when I saw the photos, I'm pretty sure I would not have recognised him before he spoke!

It's been a strange week. The sky has mostly been grey, and there has been a lot of rain - more than we can remember in some years, although statistics online show that December is usually rather a wet month in Cyprus. Sheila and I didn't walk on Thursday as it had rained all night, and hadn't stopped by the time we usually go out.

But this morning it was clearer, so despite the trail being a bit soggy in places we did our usual 4km walk, and saw that the Salt Lake was looking quite full once more.

And finally, here's the link to this year's family newsletter.

Wishing all who see this a joyful and peaceful Christmas, as we celebrate again the birth of the world's most important Baby, and every blessing for 2017.

Half-way through Advent ... and a baby

I made this year's Christmas cake at the start of November. But the sun was still shining, and there was no urgency to do anything else related to Christmas. I still have quite a large tub of mincemeat which I made last year, and one remaining Christmas pudding, both in the fridge. Since most of the family won't be coming here for Christmas this year, we won't need more than that.

I decided that Thursday would be the day for putting up our tree.  My small friends were here for the morning, so they enthusiastically sorted and placed the branches. I roughly strung the lights, and then the children hung up as many decorations as they could.

I'm not at all obsessive or perfectionist about the tree, and thought the final result looked pretty good:

Alex, however, had other ideas:

I had to pick up a prone tree twice during that afternoon, resulting in it now looking like this:

So long as the decorations are on the floor, the cats leave the tree alone. I may try to put them back again when they're not looking.

The girls were also quite excited about setting out my knitted nativity figures. They thought the coffee table would work well:

The wise men (or magi or kings) shouldn't really appear in the same tableau, but I didn't really want to put them somewhere else in the room, so we put them on the far edge of the table:

Oddly enough, other than a brief investigation, the cats haven't taken any notice of this. Here's the whole thing, in a little patch of starlight. Well, it's really sunlight, but the sun is, after all, a star.

Christmas is, of course, about the birth of the most important Baby who ever lived. But in our family, we have also been looking forward to the birth of our first granddaughter, who was due on Christmas Eve. She's the reason that her parents and brother are not coming to Cyprus for Christmas this year.

However she decided to put in an appearance a couple of weeks early, so that when we woke up on Friday morning, we had the exciting news of Esther's arrival. Here's a photo taken today of the four of them:

Although she doesn't have jaundice, she has tested positive for a Strep-B infection, which can be quite dangerous in newborns, so she and Becky have to stay in hospital for another few days. Prayers are welcome.

Happy New Year (from a chilly but mostly sunny Cyprus)

After the busy-ness of the pre-Christmas season, and the socialising and eating of the day itself, we decided to take a couple of days out as a family. As there are six of us, we rented a large car for a couple of days (courtesy of our friendly local car rental guy who had taken his seven-seater off the road for the winter, but was still prepared to give us a good price to use it).

The weather was due to be mostly sunny but a bit chilly on New Year's Eve, so we thought we'd head to Kurium, the archaeological site a little beyond Limassol. Becky had only been there once before - when she and Daniel were newly engaged, and we went to see a Shakespeare production - but there was no opportunity, then, to see anything other than the amphitheatre.

We had a slight contretemps on the way there, when David reached for the door handle of the car, while we were driving along the motorway, and managed to open the door.. but Becky held it closed until Richard pulled over onto the hard shoulder, and after some study of the car manual Daniel discovered how to set the childproof lock on the door.

By the time we arrived, David was more than ready for some walking. He's very independent and doesn't like holding a hand, unless he needs it for extra balance, so he wears a little backpack (which he loves) that has an attached leash to keep him safe:

We were impressed with the way he climbed the amphitheatre steps at great speed, full of energy, despite the fact that each stair was about waist-high for him:

Since the last time we visited, more paths have been set out, making it easier to visit the entire site, which is pretty big. Although we've been several times before, we'd never previously noticed what Becky pointed out: a floor with hexagonal tiles to play an ancient game of Settlers of Catan....

Despite being decidedly chilly in places, walking kept us warm, and the sunshine on the nearby sea was very attractive:

Here's a place showing how the under-floor heating for the Kurium baths would have worked a couple of thousand years ago:

And here's one of the mosaics that still remains, despite being battered by the elements over the centuries:

Richard took his big camera and a tripod so we could take some family photos using the timer, and David insisted on carrying the tripod some of the time:

Eventually we'd had enough of walking and decided to find a nearby taverna to have some lunch. Here we are finding our way back to the car:

In the evening we were invited for a meal at our local friends' house, followed by some games:

We didn't stay till midnight. David and his parents left about 8.30, although Becky returned half an hour later once he was settled, but by about 11.15 at least two of us were yawning, and could see no point in staying up just for the sake of saying we'd done so. By the time I'd done a bit of necessary pottering in the kitchen, after returning home, it was midnight anyway so I heard the short burst of local fireworks, but shortly afterwards was fast asleep. And to my astonishment, I slept until 8.00am... two hours later than usual.

Today we decided to go in the opposite direction and explore some of the region beyond Agia Napa, where there are sea caves and (we've been told) some interesting walks. Since it's New Year's Day we didn't want to risk potentially spending a long time trying to find an open restaurant, so we took the makings of a picnic; I made some hummus and cut up some vegetables and removed some pittas from the freezer...

It was even colder when we arrived at Cape Greko, but good to be able to see the caves, even though we had no desire to get wet trying to explore them. This is the area where hardy and brave people like to jump into the sea, but it doesn't appeal to any of us... and there was nobody attempting it today.

Another scenic shot of sunlight glinting on the sea with some rock formations in the foreground:

We soon realised there wasn't very far that we could walk easily, so we drove a bit further to Konos Bay, considered a particularly attractive spot. Daniel decided to carry David in the Ergo carrier, after he (David, that is) had done a bit of running around:

We set off on a reasonable looking path to find some other caves, or perhaps the beach:

However the path got more complex, requiring significant scrambling, and we didn't feel like continuing to the end.

We looked at the beach - which colleagues took us to visit eighteen years ago, but which we hadn't been to since - but it looked cold, and the place selling drinks was closed, and we were beginning to feel a bit peckish.

We hadn't planned to have our picnic on the beach, but were surprised to find that eating, along with various other activities, is prohibited:

Since everything was closed - even the loos - we decided to use the outside restaurant tables and chairs to eat our lunch, which was slightly delayed due to the pittas being still partly frozen... however we waved them around in the sunshine, and laid them out separately on our plastic plates, and gradually they thawed sufficiently to eat.

However we felt extremely cold by the time we'd finished, so packed up and drove into Agia Napa, hoping to find somewhere to buy hot drinks.

It was like a ghost town: most places were closed, many boarded up or empty. But at last we saw an open Coffee Island, and it even had a parking space outside:

It was playing standard UK secular Christmas music of the kind I haven't heard in a long time. I commented to Daniel that it was the first time this year I'd heard the song 'I wish it could be Christmas every day...' and he said, 'Ha ha.' I'd forgotten that it was the first day of a new year...

After hot drinks all round (and a large cookie for David!) we decided to return home, where two people took naps, three played another game, and I decided to upload my photos and write my first blog post of the year.

Mincemeat Managed!

Today dawned - unusually - grey and misty. Still, it was somewhat less chilly than it was at the end of last month, and I didn't feel too cold as I set out on my thrice-weekly 5km walk with my friend Sheila.

It was quite unusual that the mountains in the distance were almost invisible, and we saw flamingoes rather closer than usual - I still had to zoom the camera somewhat to snap them, but think they're visible if you click the image to enlarge it:

Since I had my camera out, I also snapped these bushes which looked quite colourful despite the time of year, although they would probably have looked rather better with some sunshine:

Back home and we expected workmen to arrive at 7.30am. They actually arrived about 8.15, but then impressed us with their speed, efficiency and general neatness.  

The main reason we had to get workmen in was because part of the balcony outside my study is collapsing. This is due to water getting into the 'rebar' that holds it up. Richard has been saying for a while that we should ask someone to look at it, since cracks were appearing... but when chunks of concrete started falling a few weeks ago, it turned into a more urgent situation. 

Since the guy (recommended by a friend) seemed very competent, we also asked him to deal with some loose plaster problems by our guest flat front door, as well as some bubbles on our living room ceiling where - a few years ago - we had a leak. Oh, and some problem plaster at the foot of the indoor staircase, which we think is caused by our regular roof leak, as water dribbles down the stairs during rainstorms, and gets into the wall. 

Within a couple of hours of the workmen's arrival, the balcony concrete was chipped away and the rebar painted with a water-resistant product. 

I decided that, since I now had some veggie suet, I would make this year's mincemeat today. I weighed out most of the ingredients, and then Richard said that they workmen were going to start on the indoor plaster preparation. 

So they came in, and we had to shut the kittens in the kitchen; since I didn't want to be imprisoned there, I abandoned the mincemeat and shut myself in my study.  It wasn't long before the patch at the foot of the stairs was chipped away and coated: 

As was the ceiling, where the plaster had been bubbly and flaking: 

They then brushed the floor and left it to dry for 24 hours; it all looks very neat and tidy, albeit rather bare. 

Sheila arrived shortly afterwards with her four-and-a-half-year old who just wanted to be read to today: 

After lunch, I finally succeeded in completing this year's mincemeat. It looked like a huge quantity in the bowl, but I like to pack it quite firmly, and it all fit inside one medium sized plastic container: 

However I weighed it, and it was 1.84kg in all. Slightly surprised at this odd amount I realised that it's almost exactly 4lb in imperial units.  It's an old family recipe so I suppose it was calculated to be an exact number of pounds.

Since a lot of people buy just one 450g jar of mincemeat for their mince pies, I reckon that four times as much ought to be plenty... this quantity usually is.

So that's two tasks to cross off my pre-Christmas list.

The best-made plans.... can sometimes be improved upon!

During November I took part in NaNoWriMo. Along with one of my sons and the daughter of a local friend, I succeeded in writing 50,000 words as the first draft of a novel. I did it a couple of years ago too and nothing ever came of it, but it was an interesting exercise - and quite time-consuming towards the end, when, inevitably, I fell behind on word count for a while.

November 30th was Advent Sunday, so I thought I might do as I did last year and allocate one 'task' per day in Christmas preparation. Possibly even two per day for the first two weeks of the month, since the rest of the family will be arriving on December 16th. I jotted down a list this morning: order presents, make mincemeat, write newsletter, post cards, decorate the tree, buy a poinsettia... that kind of thing. Perfectly manageable if I just plan to do one per day, starting now. The only thing I've done so far is to make our Christmas cake: I'm not one of those people who has Christmas sorted by the end of October.

Looking at the list, I thought that making mincemeat would be a simple, relaxing (and quick) job for today. I mentally checked the ingredients off in my mind.. then I realised I had no suet. Oh well, I thought, I'll pop around the corner later this morning and buy some at the local supermarket.

I was about to get out the feather duster and vacuum cleaner to start my usual Monday-morning blitz of the main floor of the house when I remembered... tomorrow morning, a workman is coming to repair some bubbled plaster in the ceiling and also by the stairs, where it got damp (about four years ago, if I recall correctly. We're really not very good at getting things done quickly). Any kind of cleaning right before plaster is being removed seemed like a pointless exercise.

So, the planned cleaning was abandoned, or at least postponed.

Then Richard said that perhaps we should start moving furniture out of the living room. That triggered some decisions we had been pondering for a while. We had talked about buying a futon or similar to go in what was Tim's bedroom. But we couldn't find anything appropriate. I pointed out that we had a perfectly good sofa bed in my study (I think it's only been used on three occasions since we moved here, as we have a separate guest flat downstairs, but it's good to have it just in case). I proposed moving it upstairs and putting one of our two-seat sofas in its place. Richard has been wanting a three-seat sofa and the only way we could fit one in our living room is to get rid of - or move - one of the two-seat sofas.

So we started to move the sofa bed. We got as far as the living room, but it's pretty heavy. No way could I move it up the stairs.

However, moving one of the two-seat sofas into my study was easy enough, and looked much better than the sofa-bed ever did. Joan of Arc approved: 

The problem was that now I had nowhere for the boxes of Lego that were tidily housed underneath the sofa bed. So we moved some other boxes in a study closet to Tim's old room, and the Lego then fit in the closet in the study. 

We moved the other sofa into our dining room, then started moving the (digital) piano. But that was really too heavy for me, too: 

So then Richard moved the television into the dining room, and I took a photo showing the sofa at the far end, the piano half-way, and the TV unit denuded of the TV: 

We did all this gradually, in between other things, and a friend came soon afterwards to help move the piano and the sofa-bed.  

When we were eating lunch, it felt as if we were in a second-hand furniture store that wasn't very well-organised...

After lunch we went into town to the furniture shop where we bought the two-seat sofas, nearly ten years ago. None of the furniture on display looked like the kind we wanted, but when we explained to a helpful assistant what we were looking for, he knew at once what we were describing, and found 'our' style of sofa in an ancient catalogue. They are made locally, he said, and we could certainly have a three-seater, in a covering of our choice. The price was even better than we had expected. 

We couldn't find the same material - since I had taken a photo earlier I could even show him what our sofas look like and he said he remembered the material, but it was no longer available. However, there was another one which was similar, which we liked, and when Richard asked about having one of the sofas re-covered (the cats pretty much destroyed the back of one of them) he gave us a good quote.

So we should have a three-seater sofa delivered in about a week. 

Just as I was thinking that the Christmas day-by-day tasks weren't even going to get started, we walked past a shop with some healthy looking poinsettias outside, at about half the price we would expect to pay elsewhere. 

So we bought one. 

I then remembered that they are supposed to be toxic to cats, and Alex is into everything.. but, happily, Snopes confirmed that poinsettias are fine. Just as well since Alex was indeed very interested: 

Next I decided to go to our local Micro supermarket to buy some veggie suet, and perhaps make mincemeat tomorrow.

There was no suet in the shop. 

Then I received a text from Tim, saying that as we had both completed NaNoWriMo, he would like to treat me - and perhaps Richard too - for ice cream. And when he heard that I was hunting, in vain, for suet, he said he was about to go to Metro supermarket and would get me some there. 

Half an hour later, Tim arrived with some suet.. and we went out, not just for ordinary ice cream, but for Haagen Dazs. Tim and Richard are dairy-free and Tim's extensive research into alternatives has led him to conclude that this company makes the best raspberry sorbet he has ever tried.  

I opted for the wonderful strawberry cheesecake... although I had a couple of tastes of the raspberry sorbet, too, and it was very good indeed. 

To sum up the day: 

• Plans:  cleaning, making mincemeat
• Actuality: moving furniture, ordering a new sofa, buying a poinsettia, eating Haagen Dazs ice cream

I'm not really into spontaneity, but it seems to me that the actuality was a vast improvement on the former...and since we now have a poinsettia, I've even done my first step towards Christmas.