Christmas at Lanoy
Last year, Christmas 2013 we abandoned completely. I remember having friends over to visit and they asked why we hadn't put up any decorations? Our roof was caving in, we had dodgy electrics, dodgy drains, damp walls and mouldy ceilings. Oh yes. of course we didn't bother with decorations.. We had far to many worries to contend with. Remember back..it was non stop pouring with rain and we had slates blowing off the roof in all directions. The holes were getting bigger, more rain was falling through the roof into the house and at one time we had around 15 buckets that we were emptying at regular intervals through out the day and night. Looking back it was pretty scary !
12 months on and we are warm and dry. Not exactly luxury yet. But were getting there. I still have bare floorboards and a large old rug on the floor in my bedroom. The drawing room still has a concrete floor with underlay in the middle. But we have clean water, heat with the new boiler and 4 logburners and nice bright lights.
So we decided this year to decorate the house a little bit for the festive season. I wanted a really large tree in the hall. something that stood huge and proud. beautifully decorated with glittering baubles, tastefully colour schemed and adorned with tiny white pea lights. A real tree this year we decided upon. How expensive are real Chrsitmas trees ?! flippin eck ! a 5ft one was about £40 and we wanted one that was 12 tall. Being thrifty, I jokingly mentioned to his nibs that 'why the heck would we buy one, when we had a row of huge fir trees on the north side of the garden that we were going to have chopped down next summer.'.... 'Just chain saw a leylandii' I joked one morning.
The last week of work before the Christmas break I had the most awful cold. It was worse than a cold it was more flu like. I was shivering uncontrollably and I had to drive to Taunton on the Thursday to see a client. I was in a really bad way. My face and ears really hurt from sinusitis, my head was pounding, I felt hot and sweaty. I just couldn't wait to get back home, get back into bed and sleep it away. I woke up Friday morning to the sound of a chainsaw outside the bedroom window. I'm not too sure how long it had been going on for, as i was in a deep night nurse/ibuprofen/sudofed induced coma. I crawled out of bed and gazed out of the side window. I could see the fir tree hedge line at the far end of the garden and one tree in particular was swaying rather more furiously than the others.
'Oh gawd... hes chopping trees down' I muttered to myself and shook my head in disbelief! ... I put my big furry dressing gown on, grabbed and handful of tissues for my ever dripping nose and plodded down stairs. The sound of the chain saw grew louder as I opened the heavy front door and stepped out onto the front steps. I put on my wellies and still in my dressing gown i walked up the driveway to where the madman was waving a whirring chainsaw around. ' I got you a tree for the hall' he proudly shouted as I approached. You've what? 'a Christmas tree'.. he repeated.. 'for the hall'
He then proceeded to drag half a full grown leylandii across the front lawn.
Once trimmed down, reduced in size and manicured into shape we had something that vaguely resembled a Christmas tree. ( which took most of the morning ) It was then manoeuvred through the front hall, narrowly missing the chandelier at the bottom of the stairs and erected it on the left hand side of the main stairwell. Actually it looked rather good once fully decorated and lit up. In the drawing room we used the old artificial tree we've had for years. It looked nice when we first put it up, but over the course of the week the kittens stripped it of all its baubles and trinkets. I kept finding them all over the house, and even saw Thomas ( ginger) carrying one in his mouth up the stairs to squirrel it away somewhere. I found one of them ( ginger) chewing tinsel and Leo the black kitten was prone to climbing the tree and i found him half way up the tree biting the fairy lights which were switched on. I think we could have had an electrocuted kitten before the new year. So on Boxing day the drawing room tree was taken down and packed away.
His nibs caught my cold and it manifested into man flu. After our Turkey and trimmings lunch , a pint of bread sauce, some Christmas pud and other festive treats and after downing 2 bottles of Prosecco for lunch , some nurofen mixed with sudofed and posibly a real ale to wash it all down his nibs suddenly announced he diddnt feel too well and went up to bed at 4pm on Christmas day.
xxx
Jo
12 months on and we are warm and dry. Not exactly luxury yet. But were getting there. I still have bare floorboards and a large old rug on the floor in my bedroom. The drawing room still has a concrete floor with underlay in the middle. But we have clean water, heat with the new boiler and 4 logburners and nice bright lights.
So we decided this year to decorate the house a little bit for the festive season. I wanted a really large tree in the hall. something that stood huge and proud. beautifully decorated with glittering baubles, tastefully colour schemed and adorned with tiny white pea lights. A real tree this year we decided upon. How expensive are real Chrsitmas trees ?! flippin eck ! a 5ft one was about £40 and we wanted one that was 12 tall. Being thrifty, I jokingly mentioned to his nibs that 'why the heck would we buy one, when we had a row of huge fir trees on the north side of the garden that we were going to have chopped down next summer.'.... 'Just chain saw a leylandii' I joked one morning.
The last week of work before the Christmas break I had the most awful cold. It was worse than a cold it was more flu like. I was shivering uncontrollably and I had to drive to Taunton on the Thursday to see a client. I was in a really bad way. My face and ears really hurt from sinusitis, my head was pounding, I felt hot and sweaty. I just couldn't wait to get back home, get back into bed and sleep it away. I woke up Friday morning to the sound of a chainsaw outside the bedroom window. I'm not too sure how long it had been going on for, as i was in a deep night nurse/ibuprofen/sudofed induced coma. I crawled out of bed and gazed out of the side window. I could see the fir tree hedge line at the far end of the garden and one tree in particular was swaying rather more furiously than the others.
'Oh gawd... hes chopping trees down' I muttered to myself and shook my head in disbelief! ... I put my big furry dressing gown on, grabbed and handful of tissues for my ever dripping nose and plodded down stairs. The sound of the chain saw grew louder as I opened the heavy front door and stepped out onto the front steps. I put on my wellies and still in my dressing gown i walked up the driveway to where the madman was waving a whirring chainsaw around. ' I got you a tree for the hall' he proudly shouted as I approached. You've what? 'a Christmas tree'.. he repeated.. 'for the hall'
He then proceeded to drag half a full grown leylandii across the front lawn.
Once trimmed down, reduced in size and manicured into shape we had something that vaguely resembled a Christmas tree. ( which took most of the morning ) It was then manoeuvred through the front hall, narrowly missing the chandelier at the bottom of the stairs and erected it on the left hand side of the main stairwell. Actually it looked rather good once fully decorated and lit up. In the drawing room we used the old artificial tree we've had for years. It looked nice when we first put it up, but over the course of the week the kittens stripped it of all its baubles and trinkets. I kept finding them all over the house, and even saw Thomas ( ginger) carrying one in his mouth up the stairs to squirrel it away somewhere. I found one of them ( ginger) chewing tinsel and Leo the black kitten was prone to climbing the tree and i found him half way up the tree biting the fairy lights which were switched on. I think we could have had an electrocuted kitten before the new year. So on Boxing day the drawing room tree was taken down and packed away.
His nibs caught my cold and it manifested into man flu. After our Turkey and trimmings lunch , a pint of bread sauce, some Christmas pud and other festive treats and after downing 2 bottles of Prosecco for lunch , some nurofen mixed with sudofed and posibly a real ale to wash it all down his nibs suddenly announced he diddnt feel too well and went up to bed at 4pm on Christmas day.
xxx
Jo
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