Bitter Sweet Day.

And so came the day of departures, a time I always find difficult to deal with. Knowing that it will be months, many months sometimes, before I see my boys again. It was harder this time because I hadn't been too sure when people were going and then all of a sudden, by lunchtime, the house was empty. It doesn't help that I look forward to these visits with such anticipation, thinking about things we can do and places we can go forgetting that limited time, poor weather and kitchen duties usually mean that they don't happen. However we enjoyed our meals together, watched some films and played some family games so we did have a good time. Linas was the first ready to go and waited fairly patiently through all the hubbub of everyone else getting organised. Vytas and Sally were going to drop him at the train station on their way back to Leicester.
There was heavy rain from the ground level clouds but I still got the youngsters to pose for the usual picture. L to R: Alex, Linas, Vytas and Sally.

And true to tradition, at the last moment Milo snuck through an open door to make his 'escape' around the garden. It happens nearly every time and all he does is run around hoping people will chase him. Now that he is older it wasn't long before he ran too closely to someone and got caught to be put on the lead and taken for a walk up the hill before being driven home with Sam, Kate and Alex.

The rain got heavier so Peter and I changed our minds about going out for a walk. Instead we had a quiet afternoon, the Christmas tree is now down and the second table taken out of the kitchen and brought back into the sitting room. So now Christmas is officially over. Peter cooked up some of the many left-overs for our supper and we watched the extended edition of Two Towers. We had hoped to see in the New Year by going into town where there is always a great party atmosphere with many people dressed up in fancy dress and live music in the Square before a firework display at midnight but it is so wet and windy that we have decided to give that a miss. So my flashing light shoe laces will have to wait until next year.