It's 31 December, a day called Silvester in Germany. Apparently this is something to do with some dead bloke in a dress who lived in Rome, but I prefer the alternative explanation that it's named after a kick-ass cat who tried to do us all a service by dishing up that annoying little Tweety Bird thing for supper.
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| Happy Silvester! |
Anyway, I'm in Manchester with Ste for New Year, have eaten enough food the past couple of weeks to last me somewhere into April, have no intention of moving more than 1.5 metres in any direction today, and so thought I'd do a quick round up of events since
my Iceland trip at the beginning of November.
Life Without TwitterThis is a bit of an odd thing to say, but I'm actually really enjoying life without Twitter. I found it a bit hard at first, it having become so much part of my routine. It was always the first thing I'd look at in the morning, and I hadn't realised quite how much time I was devoting to responding to mentions and trying (and generally failing) to come up with interesting or amusing things to photograph or tweet. Not being on it left a bit of a void initially, but now I find it really quite liberating to wake up to a phone with no notifications showing. It's quieter, calmer and I'm enjoying it.
Pre-Christmas Last year Ste was in China, so I decided
not to bother with Christmas. No tree, no presents, no stuffing myself, no mindless commercialisation. I just wanted a year off from it all. Ahhhh that was nice, and just as I hoped, that break meant I was genuinely in the mood for it this year. Ste came to Suffolk in mid December and I'd gone the whole hog, getting the cottage ready.
Advent is always the nicest time I think: the lead up to Christmas when I like lots of candles in the house, it smells of tree, and its all very
gemütlich. I bought new decorations, ordered an advent ring from Germany, had a wreath on the front door, put lights in the window, and we did loads of baking and snuggly pre-Christmas things.
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| Advent rings remind me of Weihnachten from my Kindheit |
Pride of place on the tree incidentally went to my ace ceramic collie decoration sent all the way from Kansas by Lisa (CrazyMom from Twitter) - thank you so much, I *love* it! If you look closely you'' see he's holding a string of Christmas baubles in his snout. N'aww.
Germany TripThe weekend before Christmas we drove off to Germany to visit my family. It was Ste's first time meeting them and they all made him so amazingly welcome. He was all nervous about not speaking German, but it's amazing how easy it is to simultaneously translate blocks of conversation. We're well used to it, as my Dad's competence in the language stretched pretty much only to ordering beer. I'll admit that's not a bad basic skill to have, all things considered though.
My great aunt, Tante Frieda, is 93 next year and is the only one of the relatives left who remembers anything of West Prussia, where the family is originally from. She is in amazing shape, walks bolt upright, loves working in the garden, can still speak fluent Polish, and looks completely after herself. She only gave up cycling when she was 86. On 19 January 2015 it's the 70th anniversary of the day the family had to leave their farm and all their possessions behind and had to flee for their lives on a horse and cart, as the Red Army swept across Central Europe. The story of her sister, my grandmother,
is here, if you haven't read it before.
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| Tante Frieda's 90th back in 2012 |
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It meant so much to me that Ste has got to meet her - though truthfully if anyone in the family is going to reach 100 it will be her. She even baked especially for Ste's arrival, which was just gorgeous.
As well as meeting the family, we visited the Christmas Market in Münster and our friend, the lovely @Amwii (Anne Marie) from Holland drove over for the night and we got suitably trashed on a mixture of schnapps, wine and beer. Ste somehow managed to have a quite long conversation with the chef of the Chinese restaurant we ate in, which is impressive given he was speaking Mandarin and the other guy was speaking Cantonese. It's amazing what five glasses of Schnapps can do really.
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| 圣诞快乐！好朋友，好吃的东西，好酒！ |
We had baked a collection of cinnamon and shortbread cookies for Amwii and brought them with us. Our pride and joy was this Lederhosen wearing teddy, created especially for her. She asked if he was wearing nappies and is therefore now officially dead to us.
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| A Lederhosen Bear. OBVIOUSLY. |
Brick FarmFrom Germany we came back to Suffolk for a Christmas party at Yaxley Hall for the 45 people we've been employing at our farm over the past year. Things are moving on apace and they'd been working flat out to meet a deadline on 22 December for our last valuation before we begin sales from Easter onwards. We're on time, on budget and on plan with our Grand Design to create our beautiful 43 bedroom luxury, organic, countryside, holiday spa retreat. Take that, Kevin McCloud.
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| Brick Farm |
Our holding website has been updated with some images and text giving an outline of what we're doing if you're interested: www.brickfarm.co.uk. The solid oak framed Great Barn, which will house a double-height clubroom, spa wing with gym, sauna, hammam, dip pool, and a further wing with private cinema, private dining, billiard room, bar and kitchen, is now all watertight and ready for its interior fit-out. 2015 is going to be a big year for the farm and it's a great position for us to be kicking off from.
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| One of our barns inside. View from the bedroom. |
Christmas 2014Christmas was spent with Ste's family in Liverpool. Momma Ste is an absolute star and produced the most delicious food throughout, including a special veggie roast for me on the 25th. Given she has four foster children, as well as Ste and his brother to take care of, this was seriously no mean feat. We played loads of board games, drank too much, ate too much, and it was all just wonderful. Thank you so much all of the McCormick family for my first Christmas with you. It was a delight.
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| Hmm. The raised wine glass is a bit of a theme. |
Puppy Search2014 was of course a sad year for me in terms of losing my beloved Oscar. We have been looking pretty much non-stop since August for a new baby collie, but there are so few around it's been quite a task. A couple of days ago we drove down to Lincolnshire and met this beauty. He's distantly related to Oscar, both of the dad and mum's side, and his dad in fact looks the spitting image of Oscar.
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| 5 Week Old Fluff Ball |
He's a blue merle rough collie, which is what we were looking for, and has absolutely beautiful markings. Essentially think of a silver blue/grey version of Oscar, and that's him. All of the dogs at the breeder were extremely friendly and happy, which obviously bodes well for his temperament. Only his mum, Boo, was a bit grumpy, but given she had 9 puppies and is working overtime to be protective of them, I think that's fair enough.
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| Will he be ours...? |
Before we get
too attached to him though, the dad's owner has first option on either him or his sister and we don't know which one he's going for yet. If he goes for the sister, this boy is ours at the end of January. He will be called Hector.
If he falls through, we may have the option of a puppy from Oscar's dad's breeder at the end of February. We don't know the colours yet, but a Blue from there will also be called Hector; a Tricolour (like Oscar) will be called Leopold, and a Sable/white will be Florian. As you can see we've gone for real working class hero names. Kinda. Either way, it looks as though our search is finally closing in. Watch this space for updates...
New Year 2015Despite enjoying my life being quieter without Twitter, I do miss contact with many of you. I hope you have a fantastic time this evening, whatever you are up to, and wish you all the very best for 2015. I'm looking forward hugely to the coming year, and hope it brings you everything you hope for.
With love
Peter
