The first day of the holidays didn't turn out so well. I woke up feeling a litle queasy, but put it down to the previous night's party excesses - although half a bottle of wine on top of a 4 course meal isn't that excessive, with plenty of water and dancing it off too.
Anyway, as the day progressed it became clear I had caught the bug that kept Liz and Sandy off work on Monday, as I was feeling worse not better. Tried a piece of toast for lunch - not a good idea.
On my way to the sink to chuck up, I came round face down in a puddle of blood and sick, not quite knowing what had happened. I obviously fainted, which I've done before occasionaly in vomit situations - possibly the most spectacular being when I fell down a flight of stairs in a Wigan restaurant, and the most embarrassing on a KLM connecting flight from Humberside to Amsterdam en route to Egypt, when I had to retrieve my baggage from the hold to get changed - but this last is likely to be the worst, as the bloody part of the puddle was caused by breaking the bridge on my front teeth.
Ed called the dentist for an emergency appointment today, as I wasn't up to going anywhere yesterday. Luckily the stomach situation has resolved itself, but the bridge is a painful mess in a swollen face and I'm hoping the dentist can cobble something up for Christmas, as at the moment I can't eat, and can only drink through a straw.

Later: Well I've seen the dentist and it isn't good news. At worst, I may have to lose the bridge and get dentures - not nice. At best, the bridge may be saved, but not until the swelling has reduced, ie. after Christmas. Meanwhile I have to just put up with it as it is and hope I will be able to eat again sometime soon.

This week has been a bit of an anti-climax at school, as all the concerts and parties were last week, so we had business as usual for the last 2 days, which quite frankly, is what our routine loving 3 year olds like best. Well business as usual plus left over party food! All part of the learning process in the nursery "One each, then everyone can have some" - "I haven't had one yet" lies one, not realising the chocolate round his mouth is a bit of a give-away.
Yesterday we abandonned all pretence of supporting their learning, and got on with taking down the Christmas decorations (some of the children couldn't understand that the teachers wouldn't be staying for Christmas "But you will still be here" - "Oh no we won't!") and sorting into 100 piles to take home 1 calendar made by me from computer picture drawn by them; 1 or more Christmas cards made entirely by them; 1 or more sheets of "wrapping paper" printed by them; 1 or more glittery salt dough tree decoration made by them and given ribbon by us; one greeting card from us to them; one present ditto and one wrapped cake/sweet/raisins left over from the party. At the last moment one little darling bit the fingers of another, drawing blood, so it was a tad chaotic there for a while.
But we got them all off, with only a few hiccups - Kira took Keira's things by mistake, and one parent took their child home without any of her goodies, and another came back for a forgotten hat - and then hot footed it home to get ready for our staff Christmas Party.

Today is our 30th Wedding Anniversary, so as is my tradition, I put the dress on again and it still fits. Doesn't look quite as good as it used to - the style has well gone out of date and it doesn't smell of Chanel No 19 any more - but it's the only one I'll ever have and I'm fond of it.

PS. We opened our cards and present after I got home from work, then went on the Christmas lights run as planned. The lights were spectacular and at the end, Ed produced a couple of bottles of champagne so our friends could join us in a toast.

Here is the Christmas Cake. Restrained and yet festive, don't you think?

As we are running tomorrow - the annual Christmas Lights trail, courtesy of Glyn and Verena - we had our anniversary dinner tonight. Roast beef and veg, with a bottle of Merlot, followed by chocolate brownie icecream and coffee. Very nice. Followed by watching the repeat of the semi final of Strictly Come Dancing. I'm still rooting for Mark.

Last week downstairs was a mess. Ed decided to have the carpet in the through lounge-dining room cleaned. It needed doing, but of course necessitated taking out all the furniture and putting it elsewhere, and not having much elsewhere to put it. And as the central heating chose just then to break down, the carpet took two days to dry, and we were sitting in the bedroom in the cold for an evening.
But now the downstairs looks lovely; nice clean carpet, Christmas tree and cards up - very cheerful and festive.
Then Ed decided the loft needs boarding out and we need proper loft stairs to get in to it, as it's getting harder to swing up from the step ladders every year. So yesterday we emptied the loft, completely filling the second bedroom with dusty "treasures". As this room already trebles as the ironing room and study, the airer is removed to the landing. The small third bedroom is already full of parcels to distribute over Christmas, along with dry goods to add to Mum's store cupboard when we go there. So it's a good thing downstairs looks pretty, as upstairs is a bombsite.

The Christmas Tree. Same old ornaments, some dating from my own childhood and before, one or two new this year, and mementos from the many years in between and all over the world.
There are three bells from a good luck horseshoe given to me on my wedding day; the cherub from Richard's christening cake; a bauble from Holly's wedding cake; a crown to commemorate the Queen's Golden Jubilee; an ankh from Egypt; a mask from Puerto Rico; a bell from Sydney; angels from Fiji; figures from Munich; Santas from Paris and Prague; an angel on a bell from Winchester cathedral - you get the idea.
I like souvenirs that can legitimately live in a cupboard for 11 months of the year and be got out and smiled over in December.

Ingredients

8oz self raising flour 1 Cup butter
1 Cup sugar 4 large eggs
1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt
1 cup dried fruit lemon juice
1 Cup brown sugar 1 bottle whisky
Handful of nuts

Method

Before you start, sample whisky to check quality

1) Take a large bowl. Check whisky again for validity, be sure it is of the highest quality; pour one level cup and drink. Repeat, just to make sure.

2) Turn on electric mixer and beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add one peastoon of sugar and beat again. Make sure whisky is still OK. Cry another tup.

3) Turn off mixer break two leggs and add in the bowl, and chuck in the cup of fried drute. Mix in the turner, check shisky. If fruit gets stuck in beaters, pry loose with a drewscriver. Sample whisky again to check tonsisiticity and to make shure it hasn't gone off.

4) Next shift 2 cups of salt or something - who cares? Check whisky again. Now sift the lemon juice and strain the nuts. Add one babblespoon of brown sugar or whatever colour you find. Wix mell. Grease oven. Turn cake pan 350 gredees. Don't forget to beat off the turner.

5) Throw the bowl out of the window. Cheek whisky again and bo to ged.

NB: A rootle of bum say be mubstituted for thlithee whissky. The wesults will bill sthe shame.

Well it was fairly horrendous, and we did adjourn to the pub for lunch!
All 100 children arrived in the morning and were allocated to their various adults. This in itself was too much for one sensitive soul, who elected to go home with Mummy rather than deal with all the strangeness. The rest were registered and toiletted, and we walked over to the school in an orderly manner, thinking ourselves lucky that "the naughty boy" hadn't turned up. 5 minutes later, just as the show started, he was ushered in - never mind!
The wicked fairy showed up and was really quite scarey - cue floods of tears from half a dozen nervous types, two of whom had to be taken out to calm down for a few minutes, and others who watched the rest of the show cowering behind the nearest safe adult.
The ADD types soon started shuffling and twitching, and "the naughty boy" started his usual loud remarks in colourful language, although he was quite interested in the mysterious goings on on the stage, and joined enthusiastically in the interactive shouting parts, which however, set off another batch of criers.
I can't really tell you much about the performance of Sleeping Beauty. I think it was quite good for what it was, and the majority of the children really enjoyed it. We were just pleased to have survived without incurring too many scathing looks from the Reception class teachers, who forget their children are a whole year older - and they had their criers and shufflers too!
We sent the children off home to their patiently waiting mummies and hot footed it to the pub, where we had a whole hour for lunch!!!! We saw a few straggling mums and tots, who suggested we were off home early, to our great indignation. We did of course go back to school to do some much needed sorting out, and begin our preparations for Party Day tomorrow!

We took the Nursery children to see performances by older children in school today. We had a lovely morning, taking the am children to see Year 1's production of "It's a Baby." The Year 1's (aged 5 and 6) managed to speak nice and loudly so we could hear the plot (told from the innkeeper's point of view) and the singing was great. Our children loved it and behaved themselves very well, and as a bonus, the reception children (our class from last year) watched it too, and were all waving and whispering hello to us, which is always pleasant.
The afternoon was a slightly different story. The performance was Year 2 Ballroom dancing, which wasn't nearly so entertaining for our children, and there were also mummies and daddies there, but not their mummies and daddies, which made some of them anxious, and made the room rather hot. The performance went on for about an hour, and our children behaved themselves very well for the first half hour! After that it got more and more nightmare-ish, as they started squirming and talking amongst themselves, and in the case of our "naughty boy" right out loud during the headteacher's speech. Oh dear. It wasn't just the children who felt a bit hot, especially as we were opposite the parent audience, in full view...
Tomorrow, ever gluttons for punishment, we are having all hundred children in for the morning, so they can see a professional production of Sleeping Beauty. The consolation is that however horrendous the morning may be, we get a child free afternoon to recover! We may even adjourn to the pub for lunch.

It was a cold dark wet and blustery morning, so I didn't open the sandpit or attempt to get the outside craft materials out at nursery, especially as we were a staff member short. Rather than close "the busy room" where we keep construction, music resources and small world, including the ever popular train set and dolls' house, I metaphorically closed half the outside, so that one person would be enough to support the activities of the diehard outdoors types and the fair weather tricyclists would be persuaded to stay indoors.
It worked - I only had half a dozen at a time out in the rain with me, who insisted on towelling down the vehicle seats and pedalling around in the windy wet. Most of them stayed out only until their cobwebs had been blown away before retreating indoors, or under what's left of the awning to eat fruit and drink milk in the relative dry.
Strangely enough, I had a very pleasant morning. The children who ventured out seemed to appreciate that I was there when their mothers wouldn't have been and they were chatty and companiable, discussing their Christmas trees, letters to Santa and weekend activities. But I'm glad Tuesday is my indoor day, for all that!

This was the last play we appeared in as thespians, some years ago - Ed was Antigonus and exited pursued by a bear, whilst I played Emilia and an assortment of other amalgamated servants. This was when we were in Cairo Players.
Tonight we saw A Winter's Tale again - another amateur production, this time the Caterham Miller's Centre Players. It was very good - the Paulina stole the show, as I remember she did in our production, although both kings played strong parts. The juvenile leads were a little elderly and plump for their roles - Perdita reminded me of Dawn French, though not nearly that elderly or plump; more how Dawn perhaps was in her mid 20's in a blonde wig (our actress tonight was also in a slightly unfortunate blonde wig). But good actors. The Bohemia scenes were however stolen by the Autolycus - a Benny Hill look alike, and the Clown, a rustic Ian Lavender in his heyday of silly boyhood, supported by an excellent old shepherd.
A very entertaining evening.

We've been getting on with Christmas crafts today at nursery and it all goes to show that what we usually do is right, and quite honestly "one each to take home" isn't very educational.
Usually we set up all sorts of activities and other than tempting children in with the charm of our personalities (!) they can do the activities for as long as they wish, or not at all, as they choose.
This week we want everyone (that's all 102 of them)to make a Christmas card, a picture to put on a calendar, and a glittery salt dough decoration. So we are inveigling children who really don't want to do it, and who spent a whole 3 minutes at the task just because we say they must; and conversely refusing children who are really interested and want to decorate another one, or two, or more, in case we run out of glitter, etc, before everyone has done one. Grrrr!
Hopefully, when everyone has finished one of each, we can let the creative kids loose on the leftovers and maybe one of them will take 7 Greeting cards home, like Shamiso did last year!

we received our first Christmas card this morning - a very welcome one from some rather old, old friends, which proves they are still going strong another year down the line!
We also saw one of my 3 bestest friends today - Gill and John were down South for the weekend and we met up for the day at the Imperial War Museum - I couldn't persuade John he wanted to have a go down the slides at Tate Modern!
Considering the downbeat nature of the museum, and the fact that I'm feeling very menopausal this weekend, we had a really lovely day.
We really get into the swing of Christmas at nursery this coming week too, with computer pictures for the calendars and plenty of glitter and glue available for the Christmas Cards, and to decorate the salt dough ornaments they made last week. It's beginning to wind up!