I have mail! Thank you dine for the card, and turlough and pensnest for the parcels. You're all fabulous ♥

Class broke up early for Christmas on Wednesday, as Rosie is off on a belated honeymoon. We ended with a talk about staying on track over the festive season, which basically came down to, don't go mad, but don't restrict yourself either, if you want that tasty food/chocolate etc, eat it, but always try for that balance. Which seems fair enough to me.

Then yesterday, James had a hospital appointment. As usual, to ensure we get a parking spot, we went early before heading down to the hospital restaurant for breakfast. Only to miss, by seconds, being filmed live by the BBC cameras as they were reporting on the flu outbreak that meant compulsory mask wearing in the hospital. We were warned that filming was about to start as we walked inside, and I don't think I've ever hurried off so fast.

The appointment itself went okay, I'll cut for talk about bones and a potential op for James ( here )

Tuesday night, the meal with Pauline and my brother and his family went well. The food was tasty and the company good, but the restaurant had lost our menu choices, though the deputy manager remembered us taking them in, so we had to recreate those. Then, they tried to charge us full price without the deposit taken off the bill, so organisation wasn't their strong point that night.

Tomorrow, James is delivering two commissions he's done for a man who lives about an hour north of us. They're big pieces, two foot square for each, and James has worked so incredibly hard on them so I hope the man likes them. The guy is paying petrol for delivery as posting would have been a huge amount, and has also paid quite a lot for the work on top, so this is a big exchange. I really hope it goes well.

I've been getting quite a few comments on my bandom fic lately, which is so incredibly lovely. Included in those was someone who read Tints verse and asked if they could draw Frank in his colourful outfits, and my reaction was, hell yes! My bandom friends may remember artwork for those fics was something I always asked for in wish memes, and now it may actually be happening. And yeah, it was an actual comment not a bot, I checked.

We went to see Kinky Boots at the theatre last night, and it was so good. We had brilliant seats, row H, end middle aisle and as a bonus, the lady in front of me was short so I could see perfectly. We've seen the show before, but booked tickets earlier in the year as Johannes from Strictly was supposed to be playing the role of Lola, but as it was, he wasn't eliminated from the show until last week, so he didn't do it. Not that it mattered, as the guy who did that role was amazing. The end remains ridiculously feel good and as always something that has me on my feet clapping along makes me a very happy bunny.

One drawback to going to the theatre is the lack of parking, there are a row of disabled parking spots, but they go very quickly, so we always go early and tend to go for a drink before doors open. Yesterday we got the last spot available, and as it was still 90 mins to curtain up, decided to walk to the winter village and check it out.

There wasn't that much there, some sculptures, some rides, and places to eat. But there was also a fire pit, and we decided to share a portion of crumble and that really hit the spot, sparks crackling and smoke in our eyes on a cold night. I'm glad we did share, though, as man, that crumble was sweet. Stewed fruit, buttery crumble, creamy hot custard with biscoff crumb, delicious but verging on being too much.

I actually started some Christmas shopping yesterday . Plan was to drive to a local outlet mall and get parked by 9am. The shops don't open until 10, so we'd have time to go have breakfast and a coffee, then be there for opening time, before it got mega busy. And amazingly, that's exactly what happened.

We hit Greggs for a breakfast sandwich, looked into some very overpriced homeware shops, got Corey's Christmas chocolate and James' birthday freebie from the Lindt shop, and I got my candle advent calendar from Yankee Candle. I do like an advent calendar but tend to get them when they're on sale. So this one was half price due to it being the 4th. As always they ripped the back cover, no doubt to stop reselling, but hey who cares? Half price!

Then on the afternoon the plan was to get the tree up, but yeah, that didn't happen. Instead I ended up visiting Kayleigh and Bodhi for a couple of hours while they put their decorations up. Kayleigh and Lucy are doing Elf on the Shelf, so Bodhi was telling me all about what the naughty elf had been getting up to, and then showed me another stuffed elf, saying the elf had brought it. I asked if that elf did naughty things, too. Only to be told very firmly that no, because that was a toy elf, and didn't I know toys couldn't move? So consider me told.

Monday was a day with a few minor frustrations. In class they did a move that I just couldn't master. It was the dead bug and while I could physically do the movement, my co ordination had apparently left the building, even after Rosie got on the floor twice to show me, and actually guided me a few other times.

Then later, after cashed in all my survey voucher earnings I was buying Corey's presents from Amazon. He's still upgrading his kitchen stuff and has two expensive knives on his wish list, which fine, that's what he wants, so I ordered them both along with other stuff. But then couldn't actually get through check out.

Cutting the story short, it seems you can't buy age restricted items with Amazon vouchers as they have no date of birth attached to them. Which I guess makes sense, but does mean I need to shuffle payment methods around so I can actually buy what he wants.

Today I've put up the tree and decorations at last. I've still got a load of baubles to put on the tree but have had to stop for now as I'm Bodhisitting soon. Just for a couple of hours, though. So I'll be back in my sparkly, light and sparkle deer filled house before six.

It was James' birthday yesterday. I like to buy him t-shirts that I know will appeal to his sense of humour, and this one went down really well.

Since last, I posted.

I had to change the reservation day for our Christmas meal out with Pauline, my brother, niece, and nephew. Reason being when I went to get the deposit money off my brother to take to the restaurant, he decided to tell me that my niece was actually working on the booked day. It took a bit of organising, and a lot of luck that a table was left at this late date, but I managed to change the reservation to a day everyone was available.

I'll just skip past the fact I also realised I'd double booked myself and James with both our tickets to see Kinky Boots at the theatre and the meal being the same time/day. So, the situation with my niece got us out of a jam, too. Not that I told Pauline what I'd done...

We did a craft fair on Saturday and it was a good one. A long day and it was raining really heavily when we were leaving, so we got soaked packing the car, but it was worth going. I also liked the organisers gave tickets to all the traders to get free coffee or tea and then later on gave out little cones of sweets. It's those little touches that make all the differences.

Our table was opposite the chocolate tombola which was very popular, so we got lots of passing people. Though, sadly, I didn't win when I tried myself.

In an hour or so my brother is coming to put up a hand rail on our outside front steps. There are four pretty steep steps and while we can get up them fine, I'd feel better if some kind of rail was there, especially when things get slippy in the winter. The rail he's putting up is really solid, and in fact, I took it from mam's house when we had to give that up, so it's good it's being installed at last. And eta, it's up and installed.

On Friday I had a one to one with Rosie ( cut for talk about weight )