New Year's Eve

We really didn't do a whole lot this evening. I had already gone for a swim this morning with Cat & EB, then walked with Emma & kids, so I was pretty pooped by the evening. We watched telly and mooched on the couch, stayed up to see in the new year with Jools Holland and the Hootenanny .  Definitely not a big celebration. I even got banned from banging pots and pans outside because most of our road must have been already asleep by midnight.

Bring on the New Year!

Friends Clump with our Friends

 Today Rhiannon and Sophie went for an all day walk together, leaving the house around 10:30 am and getting back after dark around 5! They hadn't brought quite enough warm clothes with them and in mid afternoon the clouds rolled in to turn the landscape into foggy white-out conditions. Emma and I took our boys and met the girls up at Friends Clump on the road to Crowborough to deliver provisions. Then they continued on their way and made it safely home eventually. They got matching head scarfy things and took these photos early on their journey..

And then here is Emma by the clump with the foggy scene around her.

So we walked all around and then let the boys play in the clump building a fort while Emma and I did an extra loop over the other side of the road.

It was a nice way to end the year, out in the fresh air with our friends.

Sunset swim

 Normally my occasional/ weekly swim in the sea has been in the morning on either Sat or Sun of the weekend. However, today i tried something new and joined my friend Sally for a sunset swim. We ran into a few other ladies we know who happened to have inherited the most lovely campfire on the beach. Some other ladies had built it and then enjoyed it but needed to leave, but it was at such a perfect maturity with plenty more wood it seemed too sad to put it out so they waved down the other ladies that Sally & I knew, and we all ended up sitting round it for a bit after the sea swim.

Of course, at this time in England (starting today), people are not allowed to gather in groups of more than 3 people so we were very carefully trying to keep distant while still reaping some of the warmth of the fire. Tricky! Then we saw about 6 police officers up on the crest of the beach (1 of them on far left of photo) and thought they were going to reprimand us for being 6 people but they did not. It turns out they had received a report of an unknown object out at sea so were coming to check that out. We never saw anything of the sort, but whatever. It was a beautiful sunset although i have no photos of that since I was out in the water. 

Post Christmas Blues

 Auntie Sions and Winnie left today and that was sad. But we cling to the good memories that we have and are grateful that we got to see them at all! Rhiannon has continued her run on making toffee and got Tryfs to participate by bagging it up. Sions was able to sell a bunch to her friends in Cardiff so this is them packaging it up to transport.

In other news, Christmas Cake! I baked this back in early November and have been diligently feeding it with aquavit and rum every few days since then. Sions had the brilliant idea to add a bit of blue food coloring to the icing and add snowflakes to make it extra pretty.

So now we will press on with the final days of 2020. I am actually working this week, but since most other people are not working, hopefully it will be a good chance to catch up on stuff.

Boxing Day

 Today we had a lovely, relaxing day just hanging around the house and going for walks - the usual!!

This afternoon we were invited to Sharon & Trefor's farm for a little festive socially distanced mini gathering in one of their barns. We were 3 households (incl Naomi & Mark a few doors down) making the best of the situation and rules these days. My favorite part (besides getting to see my friends and share this gorgeous and fun space together) was overhearing the kids navigate through the social situation with their friends they haven't seen for awhile. They ended up playing charades and it was hilarious to eavesdrop on them!

The event lasted a precious couple of hours and it was sad when it had to come to an end.  

They (mainly Sharon, I'm guessing) did a lovely job of decorating their barn with the limbs of a downed tree stuck inside the rim of a tractor tire with tinsel run around, fairy lights and good music pumping through the speakers. What a great set up!

Christmas Day

Well, Merry Christmas! We woke to a cold, sunny beautiful day. Everyone opened their stockings as and when they wanted, we had lovely coffee and cinnamon rolls, and then slowly savored the opening of presents one at a time. Later we went for a walk, and we had originally planned to accidentally on purpose run into some other friends out in the forest for a celebratory Christmas hello. But we ended up just going by ourselves on a longer loop and it was glorious. 

Afterwards we talked to the Lewis side of the family and relaxed before starting the dinner preparations, then we had a family Zoom call with the American gang,.

This is us saying goodbye to the Gans side of the family on Zoom.

Sions took this photo and we all look pretty funny in it!

This year we didn't have turkey. Instead we made a nut roast which i was initially very suspicious of, but ended up tasting absolutely delicious! This is the recipe I followed here...

Rhods and I watched telly and the kids played games with Sioned after dinner. It is really fun to hear them all laughing together.

And so there we are! Christmas 2020, now officially over.

Christmas Eve

This morning I went swimming in the sea and it was really cool to do that on Christmas Eve! Then I delivered toffee around to people's houses who had ordered from Rhiannon (just like a little elf!). And then by the time it was afternoon coziness, the rest of the fam had already gotten into the swing of things and were playing Dogopoly in front of a fire and snacking. 

 And then it was proper Christmas Eve when we all read the traditional Christmas Eve story and everyone went off to bed.

Fun time with Auntie Sions

It is so great having Sions and Winnie here! We went for a walk up at Friends Clump and that was gorgeous. The sky had so much texture and depth in the clouds - my favorite kind of sky.

We spent a good part of the evening playing this game below..

And then watched Elf together, without Rhodri. He doesn't enjoy Elf as much as the rest of us do!

Now it is starting to feel like Christmas!

Glow Wild

I have been wanting to go to this Glow Wild event for a long time and just never managed to make it happen. But this year, due to a combination of Covid-related cancellations and a bit of foul weather, I was able to book tickets at very late notice and surprise everyone with this mystery outing today.

"As darkness falls, the gardens are brought to life with glowing lanterns, mesmerising projections, immersive soundscapes, and glistening torches of fire." ... from the website

It was really fun driving them to this destination and having everyone try to guess what we were going to do. I had booked tickets for 5:10pm and wasn't at all sure what it would involve, but to be fair the whole thing was extremely well organized.

It was really cool, and different. I'm so glad we went! And that we brought umbrellas with us because we did experience quite a bit of precipitation during the first half or so of the evening. It was a little bit magical being outside at night in this setting.

A swim and a surprise

Today my friend Mary and I went for a relatively early swim. It was a little bit rough in terms of waves, but since it was very low tide we could just wade out for a long ways and jump up over the waves before they broke. It was gorgeous. 

Then later in the day we were all doing normal Sunday things and Rhodri gathered us in the gym to learn how to configure the settings on the Watt bike, but it turned out to be a ploy just to get us distracted. 

As we were concentrating on the settings of the Watt bike, Auntie Sions surprised us all (except Rhodri) and we had a very happy reunion. There had been a lot of discussion about the details and considerations for the latest Covid rules across the UK and it was looking as though she wasn't going to be able to be with us and would need to spend Christmas alone, but then some things came to light which meant that she would be allowed to be with us after all!

So yaaaaay! We get to have Sioned and Winnie be with us for a week or so now.

Backyard festivities

Its now all about finding ways to get together in small groups outside and stay warm.

Tonight we rode bikes down to Tim & Heather's house with Lucy & Mac and enjoyed their outdoor bar and firepit area. Niiiice! I loved all their lights and their whole set up .. very inspiring. 

It's really cool that now the kids are old enough for us to just leave on their own at home all evening. It's also really cool that we can ride bikes to our friends' houses in the dark and have all the right outdoor kit to stay warm and dry! Thanks Nordic Life :-)

It's also really really cool that today is my last day of work until after Christmas! I had a really good celebratory feeling inside. Its Christmas tiiiiimmmmme!

Rhiannon turns 15!

Fifteen years old! Shocking. FIFTEEN! That is so old.

Her birthday on Thursday Dec 10th was a big day, since she was given something that she really really wanted as a joint present from us and Grandma Debi: Airpods Pro. She was soooo excited and happy to have received this. So she had a good start to the day, and then her day at school went fine, then we had sushi for dinner. 

In fact, I was in Brighton all day shopping with Emma and my one mission was to come home with sushi for Rhiannon. That all turned out just fine and it was fun to be out in Brighton with my friend all day. But anyway, back to our Birthday Girl. She had a party today which started at 2:30 pm and went until nearly 9pm. Since everyone is distancing these days, the 4 girls spent nearly the whole time outside until they got too cold and had to come in. 

And so, in keeping with the birthday reflection synopsis of the relevant birthday owner, Rhiannon at 15 is:

- Emotionally mature beyond her years

- Very good at articulating her thoughts and feelings

- Thoughtful and considerate towards others

- Hard working and disciplined

- Understated

- Quietly confident

- A good friend to her brother and those around her

- Gorgeous inside and out!

Village caroling / Christmas Tree lighting

Tonight is historically my favorite event of the whole year as the village Christmas Tree Lighting party. But due to all the Covid crap, the event was cancelled several weeks ago. However! The hall committee still bought and installed a giant Christmas Tree outside the village hall and the chairs of the hall committee still needed to turn the lights on at some point...

Also! In separate news, I heard on the radio last week that there are new special rules regarding outdoor carol singing: there is no limit on number of people gathering outside to sing carols as long as other rules are maintained. That sparked a vision of marching band style caroling through the streets of the neighborhood and beyond to other neighborhoods! I then contacted our Singalong group and floated the idea past them, got enough positive responses, and then ended up coordinating with the hall committee to combine the Tree Lighting with some neighborhood caroling. 

Rather poor photo of the scene outside the hall

It didn't go exactly as I had envisioned, but there was a good turnout of people and it was an enjoyable evening in the end. I was a bit stressed with the anticipation of it all, but we got there in the end.  

Rhodri stepped up to be the events MC and lead the masses in both the switching on of the tree lights and the singing of some carols. Everyone carefully maintained 2 meter distances between bubbles and there was no sound system or lighting so it was all very "organic".  Then we split into two groups (Rhodri took one and I took the other) and headed in opposite directions down the road to carol door-to-door.  

Comparing notes after the event revealed that Rhodri's group of 6 was proper beautiful caroling while ours was a bit more rowdy, wayward energetic and funny/ cringey caroling in a much larger group. But whatever. Those who participated seemed to have a great time and it was different and festive - all good! I'm still laughing inside at the memory of some of those moments when Stuart rung a doorbell to be greeted with slight hostility and annoyance from the residents who didn't necessarily want to be sung to...

More toffee, more swimming

 I guess toffee and swimming are dominating our lives here these days! Rhiannon has been slaving away making batches of toffee to sell, and after bringing some samples to the beach, my swim buddies have been placing orders. Busy times!

Meanwhile, we've had some gorgeous cloud formations and sun streaming through, beautiful moments shared outside with the Larks (the sea swimmers group name)

Here I am getting ready to go in with Sally (in red) - I am just to the right of her - and some of the other Larks. 

Although it looks like we are close together, in fact we are all carefully keeping our distance and all that. The fresh air is so wonderful shared with friends, and I love the ritual of getting ready, going in for 10-15 min, getting out, drying and chatting over warm drinks until we have to get on with the day, whatever that is. 

Larks at the Beak

The current lockdown was promised to finish on Dec 2nd (after having started on Nov 5th) and although it was not known what the new rules would be after this time, at least a change was expected. The Whats App group that I'm on for the sea swimming malarky had decided to book some outdoor tables at the Beak Brewery in Lewes on Sat Dec 5th. I really wanted to go but it would be a relatively big drive to get there, I don't really know the ladies very well but they all seem to know each other so I would be intruding, etc. So I stayed quiet through the coordinating of it all, chewing on the pros/ cons of going. In the end, there was 1 seat unclaimed and I nabbed it. Rhodri gave me a lift down there (and picked me up afterwards) and although I felt nervous upon arrival, that quickly disappeared as I got to socialise with fellow swimmers out of the water under the marquee on a very wet and cold night. No photos unfortunately, but it was a fun night and I was glad for the chance to get outside to a social event with new friends.

Mega Family Zoom

 We were invited to join a family reunion post Thanksgiving Zoom call, and it was so great! Organized by my Dad's cousin in law Cherie, there were something like 80 people invited to it. I guess its not so mega as far as Zoom calls go, but I was impressed reading the joining instructions where each branch of the family had specific time slots allocated. Fortunately we were towards the beginning at 9pm our time. Loved seeing my 2nd cousin Justin and his 7 kids, although I didn't get a glimpse of Rebekah and was sad about that. It would have been fun to see them since we all lived together for a little bit in San Diego back in 2001. 

More swimming

I have been able to do a bit more swimming down at Tide Mills. It is just so wonderful and fun and empowering. 

Toffee madness

Rhiannon has been back on the fundraising mission by making and selling English Toffee using the family recipe. Bless her, she has been working really hard and staying on top of the orders that are coming in to her mailbox.

If you are reading this and interested in ordering some, you can private message me.

 

My birthday this year

Yesterday was a nice day of surprises. I woke up and was treated to presents and coffee with toast in bed. I got an awesome Garmin watch, a Firepot stove and a new yoga mat - all really thoughtful and perfect gifts! Then, as it was a normal school and work day, everyone started their day and set off just before 8:00 am, including me. I did manage to take a long lunch break and cycle over to Wych Cross Garden Centre which is still open despite these boring Covid times. I met Lou there and we walked around really slowly (since she has a broken ankle just now and her foot is in a boot) talking and catching up. We sat in the outbuilding which has BBQ and outdoor furniture on display, and actually we sat in the 2 lawn chairs that were on offer for sale, "just testing them out"... 

Then I cycled back home in time for my 2pm conference call. In the late afternoon, I went for a walk with Emma round the forest with her dog, which was lovely. We had Thai Time takeaway dinner and a delicious birthday cake baked by our friend Sarah-the-Cake-Lady

 This card made me laugh so much

Then today I took the day off and slept in a bit, then went swimming with Cat and EB down at Tide Mills. Cat gave me a long cozy hoodie which is soooo nice to put on after getting out of the water