Christmas Day countdown

Family, mud and a 'nifty-fifty' 

Work finished on Friday night at the usual time (it wasn't Christmas Eve after all) and the first port of call was our local village pub which was full of people ready to party.

After chatting to some of the locals and sampling the Christmas beer we wandered home to begin the final round of preparations before our son arrived home on Saturday.

Village pub

What followed was a whirlwind of cleaning and tidying until the house looked a treat then we sat down to a simple spicy chicken supper and a glass of wine.

Saturday morning was taken up with trips to the nearest towns to pick up last minute food and drink, including the turkey which was much bigger than we had imagined!  We discovered a stall in Macclesfield market selling French food such as pates, home-made quiches and casseroles - they looked delicious so we picked up a family sized Quiche Lorraine for tea.  Our favourite bakery, Flour Water Salt, provided a lovely sourdough loaf and we stopped in and had coffee with a rich slice of custard tart to keep us going.  Another important stop was the local microbrewery, the Cheshire Brewhouse, for a selection of special bottled beers, chosen after a bit of a tasting..

Christmas Eve, Sunday, saw me getting very busy preparing the vegetables, making a start on the stuffing and gravy and cooking a roast ham.  It soon began to smell very Christmassy.  I was so glad I had done all this prep because it meant I could then relax on Christmas Day, in fact we didn't need to start doing any cooking until midday.  Christmas morning was just a relaxing family time, with a toasting of champagne before we opened our Christmas presents.

Once the turkey was in the oven we headed out for a walk around the village, trying out a new footpath and my Christmas present, a new Canon prime lens - known as a nifty-fifty.  I am used to using a zoom lens, which I suppose has made me a little lazy.  The prime lens is made with better quality optics but at a fixed focal length - so I can't zoom in and out, instead I have to move myself nearer or further away from the subject.  It also is a 'fast' lens - which can let in more light so reacts quicker and this gives a lovely shallow depth of field when you want it by using a wide aperture.  I was really pleased with my first photos - presented here with no editing whatsoever.

Winter violas

Christmas wreath

The newly opened footpath took us over fields we had never crossed before but because it had been wet some areas of the route were very muddy, even boggy and I was very glad I'd put on my Joules wellies as I squelched through the mud!

We were back in time to get changed into our Christmas finery before other members of the family joined us for our Christmas dinner.  It all went down well, no disasters this year (the last time I cooked the turkey I ended up with gravy over the kitchen ceiling and walls...) and a good time was had by all!

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas too.