Happy new year!!

Christmas has been and gone since I last blogged. Thank goodness. I'm not a fan of christmas, perhaps because I have always had to work - my mum had a pub when we were young, and since then farming has taken priority.

With the pub we had private christmas parties - firms dos etc -from mid-November, and then we had our own christmas eve party. The pub then had to open christmas day lunchtime, so masses of cleaning up had to be done before mid-day. Pressies were either opened very early or put on hold until the afternoon.

New year's eve was also party night, with the hangovers for new year's day when we opened again.

Of course with farming the animals don't know it's christmas, so it's easier to do them and again open the pressies later. Christmas dinner is also a problem - do we have it (rushed) before we do up at night or do we wait until afterwards when we can have a drink or two, or three, and not have to go outside again. As the kids get older it is easier. Or is it?

My eldest buys herself an advent calendar if I forget, and they moan like anything when they come and there is no christmas tree.

I now buy them an Asda or Tesco bag - one of the pretty canvas ones - and put lots of stocking fillers in (unwrapped of course). They still get pleasure from wondering what is in it, I think. Their big pressy is money. So, as you can tell, I don't make a massive effort for one or two days.

Now that new year is over the (sparse) decorations that I did do are down. The cards took no time at all - we only received 5, 4 were from OH's family!

On a lighter note though. All the barns are ready for the sheep to come in for lambing, but with the scarcity of hay do I keep them out or bring them in before lambing? Nothing is easy, even when you are supposedly retired. At least the pre-christmas snow has gone though, but I wish it would warm up a bit.

Time to do up again. Happy new year to you all.