It's astounding; time is..fleeting...

Well that's it for another year. Christmas has been and gone. We all survived our little trip to Cork - my friends' house is still standing and there were no major incidents, no heads bitten off, no broken bones and no family feuds. In fact it all went rather well.

We loaded ourselves, our luggage and the gifts into the car on Saturday morning and hit the road around 7am while it was still dark and early enough to miss the worst of the traffic. (Traffic? What traffic? Half way there I was beginning to wonder if we had the right weekend!) No complaints though, we made good time and didn't even have to shout once at the 3 youngsters in the back for misbehaving. Yay MP3-players!!!

And so we arrived on Christmas Eve on a cold but sunny afternoon and it wasn't long before the cooking started.
Er, well, okay, mostly I sat and watched my friend cook 'cos she's really good at it (me... not so much) and she made a really awesome roast duck (Jamie Oliver would've been pleased - it was his recipe) for Christmas Eve dinner.

The table looked beautiful and so did the little tree sparkling in the corner as it kept watch over all the presents.

Since we had bribed the kids into behaving so well during the day, we opened some of the presents after dinner, but the rest we left for Christmas morning. There was much excitement and ripped paper, mixed with small moments of sadness for each of us at different times of the day, because although we were together, we were all, I think, missing someone far away at home at some point. But it was hard to stay sad with Christmas songs pouring non-stop from the CD-player and the wonderful smells of a late afternoon Christmas banquet permeating every nook and cranny of the house.

Finally, having fed the hordes, cleaned the kitchen and distributed all gifts, my friend and I spent that evening in the kitchen with the door closed and the music on; Hubby walked in on us doing the Time-Warp dance and singing our lungs out to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a bottle of wine and a bottle of Baileys down, and well into a bottle of whiskey... well he just smiled a little nervously and then backed out of the room slowly again... we didn't see anyone else for the rest of the night, hehe! Hey, a girl's gotta have some fun right?!

On Tuesday, with cabin-fever beginning to set in, we jumped in the cars and went off to visit Blarney Castle not too far away and spent the day wandering around the ancient castle and the beautiful gardens surrounding it. I had a whale of a time snapping away with my camera as it turned into another sunny day, although near-freezing.







Coffee and desserts warmed us up afterwards in a little restaurant in the village of Blarney and then the boys went home while we three girls faced the madness of the first day of the Blarney Woolen Mills sale. Nothing like a bit of retail therapy to round off a perfect day :-)

And now we're back home again. After all the build-up to Christmas it's hard to believe it's all over so suddenly and in just a few days a new year begins. I'm sure all the bah-humbuggers will be pleased they can relax again for the next 11 months.