This Christmas has been the most sociable in years. It’s also been something of a baptism of fire. I moved into the house just two weeks ago, yet we’ve already had three people staying for a week and, with Rich’s help, cooked full sit-down meals for them all three times a day every day.

First to arrive was Dad, last Sunday. We picked him up from Stansted after a particularly uncomfortable trip around Sainsbury’s, which had turned into some kind of battlezone. Trench warfare had broken out around the vegetables, the meat isles were being stripped bare and less bolshy shoppers were being knocked sideways by old women with overflowing trolleys.

Anyhow, we set him up in the second bedroom and spent the next couple of days finishing off the Christmas cooking, walking into town and fixing the bikes. He’s just bought a new place in town so we walked by that a couple of times to take a look, but as he’s not yet got hold of the keys we couldn’t go inside for a proper look. That’ll have to wait until the middle of next month.

We spent Christmas day at mum’s, along with Sal, Dan and Will, who all had heavy colds which it looks like we may now have too. With Viv and Tony there too it made for a very full house, but also fun games as we split into teams in the evening and avoided the abysmal revival of To The Manor Born. Dreadful. Inexcusably bad. It’s not surprising the TV guide said that preview DVDs had not been made available in advance. It is surprising (and very disappointing) that they still gave it four stars. It didn’t warrant even one.

Boxing Day, Rich’s mum and Bart arrived, and we played host at home. We did punchnip soup, half a Christmas roast and chocolate brownies for lunch, and a buffet for dinner, and in between went for walks and played games and had fun.

The days since then have gone by in a blur. Much of them have been spent opening bottles (as the recycling box will shamefully confirm), cooking toast in the new Dualit (yummy) and eating more than we need, with tuna lasagne, butternut squash pie and quiches somewhere in the mix.

Now we’re heading for New Year and it looks like being a quiet one. We both need it. Oven-baked camembert and champagne in front of the fire with Oscar will likely be the order of the day as we see the old year out and welcome the new one in.

1. Christmas Day
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2. Boxing
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3. Christmas at PCW
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