Mainly Dry.

 A Happy Christmas to you all.

For us Christmas started with our traditional fish meal on Christmas Eve followed by Midnight Service at our local village church. There were about 40 people in the church which is a sad decline from our first years here when it was hard to find seats at the Midnight Service. While waiting for the service to start (and doing a quick head count), I thought what an achievement constructing such a building in the days when everything was done by hand. Parts of the building are 13th century, others 15th century with major restoration in the 1880's. And I thought too of how the whole community would have been standing there (no pews in the early days) celebrating high days and Holy days. I know that people of many faiths, or of none celebrate Christmas and that it has been tacked onto the winter solstice celebrations but after all,

JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON.

My inner child woke me at 5.00 but much as I was looking forward to tucking into some chocolate (I have been restrained through December and cut right back on chocolate and sweet things), I didn't want to wake Peter by crashing around and making a cup of tea so I turned over for a few more hours sleep. The very best part of today was to speak to all the boys. I phoned Linas and Romas and had a long chat with each of them and then to my surprise Vytas phoned from Australia. The farm work is not quite as imagined. They are on a farm about an hour from the coast in a fertile area and they are mainly doing fencing and weeding. Nothing wrong with that but I was surprised to hear that today has been no different from any other day. They worked until 9.00 pm and there was no special meal or even a barbecue to mark the day. Considering they are working without pay I think that is seriously mean minded. 

After our Christmas lunch, boef bourginion with mash, red cabbage and swede & carrot mash, I went for a walk up the hill to Bowden Corner. I spent a while watching a flock of starlings flowing in and out of the trees. 

The sun was trying to peek through a few holes in the clouds and the undersides of some of the clouds were lit with a soft dusky pink light.

 Finally a shot of some cute chocolate decorations sent to me by Romas. Almost too nice to eat.