Christmas 2022

Christmas 2022 was going to be fairly standard-ish in the "new pattern": to Mother's for a few days, then back home and New Year's eve chez Mfd+J, now they are in Cambridge. But! A few days before, M tested +ve for Covid. And then when I phoned up to try to plan, it turned out that some comedy combination of Rob, Lara and Toby had it. So it became clear that the traditional Christmas Day was out. Having danced around various not very plausible ideas we did the obvious: stayed at home, had a quiet Christmas day of just-us-four, and then went over to Mother later in the week - Wednesday evening - once all the positivity had subsided.

Here we all are on Christmas day, with the presents not yet opened behind us. We waited for the King's speech, of course. The Tree was J's plastic one suitably adorned with LEDs, which seemed to work well.

Note the bandanas, which M had deemed essential. D is still in Harvey Goodwin Gardens, but came over around ten to cook Christmas dinner with E and M. I, as ever, ran a half; rather slowly in 1:57. I had cooked a fruit cake, and we had a Christmas pudding (found by me at great cost in toil in M+S), but we ate neither on the day as we were so stuffed by the lunch. We did watch that well-known Christmas movie Glass Onion, and all agreed that it was entertaining nonsense. We also slept somewhat.

Mfd+J came round at teatime to say hello, and the Covid-comedy continued as M sat outside the living room on the stairs.

The forecast for Boxing Day was fine; and we were keen to climb especially E, so we (DEI) went up to Horseshoe Quarry, cruelly leaving M behind: but she was under the weather so happy to rest. The 27th was just a quiet day, I walked into town and enjoyed being able to stroll, leisurely, with no time pressure. Wednesday the 28th was similar, except we packed up and left around 4 to go over to Mother's, since this was now possible. We had a quiet meal with her, in preparation for the Great Day, Thursday, which was officially proper Christmas Meal Day.

As you'd hope, I did a half that day too, with the bonus of company from Lara (initially) and Toby (till 2/3) and the pleasure of beating them both, not that it was in any way a competition oh no indeed not. And I managed 1:55, which was nice 'cos it is hilly there. Lunch was out, at the nearby farm-shop-cafe-newly-opened-thing; some walked there, but I didn't. Dinner was as ever sumptuous, but in the evening, since N was working.

After, we had a couple of games of This Year's Game, which E selected as Ticket to Ride, and it was very good. D won one and came second in the other.

And that, somewhat abbreviated and so lacking the "timeless" element that creeps into previous years, was that; and on Friday we went home. Saturday to Mfd+J for New Year's Eve, with bonus Si+B.

Sunday was New Year's day so I did the traditional Chesterton 10 k; somewhat slowly: I think I was still wearing off the half. Then - the weather being fine, or at least tolerable - E and I snatched our one chance to go sculling in the double over Jesus lock and down the Backs. Highly recommended. That evening Milo was around; as an important feature of E's life over the past year he deserves a mention. And we finally lit and ate the Christmas pudding.

And then, we had Monday off too, and the weather was again tolerable, so D and I took the chance to walk to Ely again. With just us, and striding out at his pace, we made it in under 5 hours; it is 25 k, from our door to the station; neither of us felt like going as far as the cathedral.