How lovely it was to have C’s other two daughters over today. With them was son-in-law and four month old granddaughter.

It required a two day intensive tidy up in the kitchen and lounge. C is a hoarder and has so much stuff, a lot of it not even ours, all over the place. Pretty much every horizontal surface has piles of stuff on it.

The girls, and M, were coming over for a few hours and a light lunch. We’d decided to make a Pinch of Nom bacon, potato and leek soup. C also baked some bread and rolls. We did those the day before. During the morning of their arrival C was finishing up the clearing whilst I baked a black forest gateau from a green BakedIn box.

Baby E was of course the centre of attention, enjoying ripping wrapping paper open, but then trying to eat it. Most things she was given went straight to her mouth. Over lunch she sucked on a slice of cucumber but also seemed to enjoy sucking on a piece of grandad’s homemade white bread roll.

All this attention, new sights, smells and interesting things to look at soon took their toll and she eventually used her daddy’s belly as a cushion for a nice long nap.

Although the black forest gateau didn’t look the prettiest, my jam was to runny and I’d used too much of the cream between the bottom layers there was hardly enough to cover the top, it did taste rather nice. The half hour or so of destoning and chopping the cherries was worth it. C and M had seconds so it couldn’t have been too bad. There was a little bit left over for me and C later on.

C stopped by his brother’s on the way back from putting flowers on his parents graves in Suffolk a couple of days before Christmas. We’ve seen most of my family at dad’s birthday gathering. Spent two lovely days with R on Christmas/Boxing Day, then some time with the other girls and M. That’s all our planned Christmas gatherings complete.

We’re lucky to have been able to see and spend time with everyone especially as others we know have had their plans changed and not been able to see family.

If everyone acts sensibly and limits their exposure to other people over the New Year, hopefully we’ll not see the return of harsher restrictions, or another lockdown.

We’ll be spending New Year at home, just the two of us, watching telly and falling asleep.