The Nigel Slater Christmas Chronicles Readalong 2024 Part 2

[RainbowZebraWarrior]

Welcome all new and old friends.

The journey continues.

I love those bed armchair thingies. Great idea for my Dad who at 94 spends a fair bit of time in bed

Sorry about that @MadMadMad 😂It is rather a good way of sampling 24 different scented candles. There are bound to a few you can't stand (I've got Biscuit today and I'm worried there will be too much vanilla in it!), but also others you will love, so it's a good way of deciding if you want to splash out on the full-size version. Personally I love a tealight - they last an evening then you put out a completely fresh one the next day (it appeals to neat freak in me - much more attractive than a half-burned candle, particularly when it's nearly down to the end). The Durance ones in my Advent calendar have surprisingly good throw (is that the word) - tiny, but mighty.

I am fully flu'd up unfortunately. Cancelled job interview and staying in bed today in the hope of getting better for Friday. Nothing is really touching it and I deffo wouldn't go down the garden to pick up a £20 note as the old real flu test goes. Rubbish.
Did get about half way through decorating the hall way yesterday however and I'm quite pleased with it so far!

Good morning, all. There's no entry today (thankfully)

I'm stuck at hospital in urgent care waiting to be seen about an infected cyst on my breast. It's been troublesome for a few days, but last night the redness really started spread. I've been triaged and am awaiting the doctor (I've been allocated an appointment at 12.30).
The nurse seems to think I might just be sent home with antibiotics and a follow up referral to the breast clinic. Fingers crossed.

Oh blimey @RainbowZebraWarrior hope you are ok!

Oh, bless you @piscofrisco get well soon. We're dropping like flies! Your decor looks stunning mind ❤️

Oh crikey @RainbowZebraWarrior and @piscofrisco Hope you’re able to rest a bit and get some decent pain relief.

I’m about to go off for treatment 7 of 16 and enter the hinterlands of temporary mild steroid/ antihistamines bonkersness followed by nausea for the next few days. Had my last “normal person” walk this morning and am about to pack my ice gloves and socks into my cool bag. I have a load of decent podcasts lined up and my dh is there to give me my cuppa (as I can’t hold anything in the ice gloves and also post chocolate bourbons into my mouth.

I hope ds2 and dh will sort our deca in the next couple of days.
lots of groups of little birds foraging tightly together on my walk today - lovely group of long tailed tits. Which are some of my very favourite little birds. Apparently the collective noun is a volery of long tailed tits. This is from the French “volière”.

Best of luck with the treatment @Bimblesalong I also love a long tailed tit. There used to be a very tame one which I saw when I visited my Aunt and Uncles caravan. I didn't know that a group of them was a volery.

Possibly my favourite bird, and definitely my favourite word for a group of them is Northern Lapwings. A flock is referred to as a 'deceit' of, as they are known to be deceitful and treacherous (in a similar way to a cuckoo) I've heard and seen lots of little wrens this week. Their sound always surprises me and reminds me of an electrical fault of some sort.

Glad you got your walk in @Bimblesalong and I hope your treatment goes as well and as easily as it's possible for it to x

get well soon @RainbowZebraWarrior and @piscofrisco and good luck with the treatment @Bimblesalong

that hallway looks incredible. Very insta worthy, which I feel is the highest praise today’s society can give.

@RainbowZebraWarrior sorry to hear your news. Hope you get sorted soon xx

Hoping @RainbowZebraWarrior and @piscofrisco feel better soon and @Bimblesalong's treatment goes well. Pisco, that decor is stunning! I have massive hallway envy. Ours is still the hideous green it was when we bought the house 16 bloody years ago as we've focused on structural work, kids rooms, bathroom and kitchen and ran out of money Just the living rooms and our bedrooms to do before we can get to the hall. So probably another 16 years...

Off to take DD to a 6th form open evening later. She's not a fan of staying with her current school so she's off to get some tasters of what the alternatives are. Fingers crossed she finds one that suits.

@piscofrisco your decor is amazing. So beautiful

Sorry to hear about all the ill health - not what you want in the run up to Christmas! We’ve had a bit of a mare of a time with further unexpected house repairs, so it’s not been the most restful advent so far. Fingers crossed things will go more smoothly from here on in!

For the last few years our road has done a window advent - often with more than one window a night (our road has over 100 houses and lots of people like to take part!) Some people do amazing ornate windows, others are more made by the kids, but it’s such a lovely community minded thing and it makes our street look beautiful in the run up to Christmas. Our offerings are generally chosen by the kids (but made with adult help!) so not terrible Nigel… photos attached for anyone interested. We’re hoping to move next year and this is one of the things that I will really miss about living here.

Oh I love those windows! I'd love it if our village did an advent window things- its def something I'd sign up for.

My front window decorations is always the same thing- I have loads of those scandi straw snowflake decorations and I stick them to the window and then spend the rest of the year picking sellotape off the window it looks good from outside and inside we get the added bonus of them throwing snowflake shadows on the walls.

Lovely windows! No one really talks to each other on our street that much sadly so it wouldn't fly on ours.
Thankyou all re my hallway. I want to get up and finish it! Maybe tomorrow. I'm
Hoping dh can find me some drowsy night nurse at King's Cross on his way back from work as I barely slept last night and that's probably half the problem. I've had DD out spray painting my twigs this afternoon whilst it was dry. I've had to bribe her with spectacularly un Nigel KFC for her tea.
@BobBobBobbing we had a huge house fire 2 and half years ago, been back in the house a year in Feb, and I've still got two bathrooms to finish painting. I did all the rest of the decorating and then got sick of it and that's where it was left! I would like to paint those banisters and all the woodwork but it will be a pain and take ages and I'm so indecisive about what colour, (is dark a bit overdone maybe?), that again I just haven't bothered. Maybe in the new year... (I will obvs 100% be back on next years Nigel thread with the same white bannisters).

@RainbowZebraWarrior @piscofrisco and @Bimblesalong - hope you’re all soon on the mend, such a bad time to feel ill, adds to the anxiety in the run up to Christmas when you’re trying to relax and enjoy it. @piscofrisco - I’m another one with serious hall envy, it looks stunning! Dh has brought our Christmas Branch out this afternoon, intending to give it a fresh coat of white paint; unfortunately it’s now so brittle it won’t support any ornaments and has had to be binned! So now we have to decide whether to go down the lane and try to find another one, change our minds and buy a fresh tree even though we’ll be away at DD’s over Christmas, buy a new artificial one or make do with a (very) tiny artificial one we bought last year. Decisions decisions!!!

I love your hallway @piscofrisco (and I actually rather love the fact the banisters are all white - throws the focus onto that lovely herringbone parquet) - look forward to seeing it after you've made the finishing touches. Hope you feel better soon and also @RainbowZebraWarrior and best of luck with the next round of treatment @Bimblesalong.

Just catching up. I'm home. After monitoring and checking with the minor surgery team and breast clinic, it was indeed decided to send me home with antibiotics. The coamoxiclav 625 has made me instantly unwell from a gastro POV (always does) I have an appointment with the breast clinic Monday morning to scan then aspirate / remove whatever is still left of the abcess that the antibiotics haven't shifted by then. Any worse, and I have to go straight to the Emergency dept / look out for Sepsis symptoms etc. My bra and the shirt are covered in purple felt tip where I've been drawn on.

Going to go make something to eat for DD then go to bed.

@RainbowZebraWarrior and @piscofrisco I hope you feel better soon. Rotten timing for you both. And @Bimblesalong I hope the treatment goes ok.
I go to an art group run by Mind on a Wednesday. Mostly we each get on with our own projects, but every now and then there is an organised activity which we can join in with or not as we choose. The leader organised Christmas lantern making today and I decided to have a go. I really enjoyed myself! I still need to decorate it though. I was going to go with a moon and stars, but now I'm thinking holly and poinsettias.

I hope you are soundly asleep now @RainbowZebraWarrior. So sorry you have had that to deal with today.

Christmas lantern making sounds lovely. I used to work for Mind. One of my favourite jobs ever.

Not everyone is a fan of my hall way. My mum said the big long red glass bauble thingies looked like blood samples . She's never been known to mince her words. And now I can't unsee it.

I'm tucked up in bed with all three Dogs and olbas oil pumping out of my steam diffuser. Kids have had their KFC and I can hear them bickering. Not very festive chez pisco this evening at all :(

Evening girls.

@piscofrisco LOVE the hall!! I absolutely adore spacious houses as mine is the total opposite. We had to decide tiny house in a gorgeous area or large house but rural. We couldn’t have both and we both love cities so here we are in our miniature house. I just love seeing and visiting spacious ones.

@RainbowZebraWarrior glad you’ve got Abx but sorry you feel so very grim.

Not much to report here - I spent 4 hrs on a freezing hockey pitch this afternoon. Good grief I was so so cold. I didn’t have time to change between jobs so was in 2 coats but no hat and just surgical scrubs underneath. As a total surprise DH arrived and gave me his legwarmers he had on under his jeans. Love him.

I’m feeling manky so have come to bed - I need to be well by the morning to work.

@piscofrisco the flu sucks. However the bickering- it is irritating and annoying, but someone once said it means that the children feel safe and comfortable enough to disagree and express their opinions. I totally cling to that! And as they get older I hear more camaraderie than fighting. As Terry Pratchett said "It was nice to hear the voices of little children at play, provided you took care to be far enough away not to hear what they were actually saying."

Love the hall and the window display. I have a tiny hall - compact and bijou 😁

5 December

Krampusnacht and a cake that smells of sugar and spice

The fallen leaves remain in crisp piles under the chestnut trees outside the house. No one sweeps them up, instead, we leave them to break down into a chocolate brown loam. I planted Narcissi under them once, but the bulbs mysteriously moved to further down the road, where they bloom, laughing at me each spring. A branch has broken off in the wind and I pick it up and bring it into the house.