A Cold Shopping Day

It goes without saying that it was another cold morning when I woke up and the temperature outside was minus five at day break with little prospect of it warming up. Thankfully the double figure minus temperatures predicted for today were wrong, all the same it's very cold outside. Thankfully with a little extra money coming in today we we can have a nice coal fire latter to supplement the central heating.

As always Lucy was first up and she settled down to watch some children's television as she woke up snuggled under blanket. This went on for a while and at one point I was called in to join her for a cuddle as she watched "Come Outside". She wanted me to cuddle down and watch it with her. It was just after it finished that she decided that Emily and Catherine should get up and join her. She marched upstairs determined to get them up. It didn't quite work straight away but after ten minutes or so Emily appeared downstairs to check if her program had finished installing, which it had. Seeing Emily was busy Lucy made a second successful attempt at getting Catherine out of bed to play with her.

Lucy and Catherine played together in the family room, while I worked with Emily trying to get her game working. There seemed to be a problem with her hardware drivers and the game that keeps causing her game to crash. I will get to the bottom of it, but it just a question of how long it takes to get there and if Emily has the patience to wait for it to be repaired before she gives up on it. Increasing it looks like I'm going to have try it on a fresh install of Windows XP and see if that fixes the problems with the drivers. Not what you call fun before Christmas. I spend all my time teaching how to repair computers and although I don't mind doing it outside work it is far from fun.

As lunchtime approached we all got ready to go out and do some last minute Christmas shopping. It was also a nice excuse to get out after all the travelling yesterday and have some fun, rather than just going from A to B and back to A again.

The first destination of the afternoon was Melton and of course the bakers their for some food, but that had to wait for a little while. There was the card shop to go into first to pick up some bags for presents. Lucy loves it there with all the teddy bears to look at and the cards. It is really hard work keep her little hands off things, but she is good when you tell her not to touch things. You just have to keep a eye out for when she thinks your not looking. From there it was off to Boots the chemist and onto W.H.Smiths for some more presents before eventually arriving at Gregg's for the food for the little tummies.

We ate our food on the way to Gates Nursery to have a look around for more presents. I must say from my experience that the Nursery gift shop is one of the best places locally to buy presents. In the past I have managed to get some lovely things there for Birthdays. Lucy had a grand time in the toy section with Catherine. They had a toy table with some demonstration toys for children to try out and Lucy had a wonderful time with Catherine just doing that until it was time to move on to look at the Christmas decorations. They have one of the best displays of decorations I have ever seen. The places is so magical and I just wish I had the money to buy them all. They all look so beautiful and such good quality. Lucy feel in love with a large snowman and there was no stopping her giving him a hug before we went off looking for some coal to buy for later. They other reason we went there other than presents.

When we got home, after popping into the supermarket, I started work on a fire and the dinner. Lucy helped me make the fire by passing me the wood as I built up the fire around some fire lighters. I must say I'm rather good at making real fires, it is something I have been doing since I lived in Durham as a student in a coal fired house complete with a coke burning AGA that was a bugger to light. Soon the smoke was raising and it burst into flame much to Lucy's delight. Since I have been here I have only had one fire fail and that was when I didn't have enough wood to start the fire off.

Tonight we had some nice baked potatoes covered in cheese and beans to warm us all up as we sat in front of the fire watching a DVD together. George loves the fire and he roasts himself until he is so hot that he hides behind the sofa to get away from the heat. Lucy tried hard to watch the film for the first thirty minutes or so with Emily laying on the floor beside the fire. Then she decided to flit between Catherine, Emily and myself. Taking it in turns to sit with us for a cuddle before she decided she wanted to play with something rather than watch the television.

Lucy never got to watch the end of the film, but I guess it will wait for another day, she had to go to bed before it ended. Happily she went upstairs to her bath and soon she was having fun in the water and pretending to mix all kinds of food mixtures to drink in the bowls she has in the bath. All to soon she was getting out of the bath and being dried off in her bedroom before her stories and kisses. All snuggled up she was soon asleep while Emily and Catherine finished the film in front of the fire before going up to join her in their slumbers.

Just one more day of having them altogether left now before they all go their separate ways for Christmas. I plan to enjoy it because that is all I can really do. We are going to have a special New Year dinner to make up for the one they are all missing, but the fact is Christmas is for families and for children and without them it just feels strange. I love them all, no matter what and that is all that matters, and I hope they hold that in their heart as I do in mine.