Christmas 2015 and New Year – Fairford

 

What a busy couple of weeks we had over Christmas and New Year. First Jo arrived from California to spend Christmas with us as her children were spending the holiday with their father. Then the three of us went to visit Jenny and family at Caversham. The next day James, Hannah, Rosie and Ptolemy arrived at The Nook and then on Christmas Eve Jess, Jon and Oscar arrived.  We had a lovely time on Christmas Day – the grandchildren seemed to enjoy themselves opening presents as indeed did the adults. Boxing Day was quiet as all bar Jo left.

We dropped Jo off at Heathrow on Monday 28^th December and then drove to Torquay to stay for two nights of a Twixmas Break.  We had a lovely room with a bay window and easy chairs overlooking the sea and gardens. The hotel and food were generally good and we enjoyed our short stay.

Weather over Christmas and New Year was not good (but better than the poor people in the North of the country had). However, the Tuesday was brilliant and we walked from our hotel along the coast to Paignton.  After a coffee we took a bus to Brixham where we enjoyed lunch before returning the same way to our hotel. We were pleased as we walked about 8 miles in total. The beach at Paignton was quite crowded really and there was some beautiful sand art to be seen at Torquay.

We left Torquay and drove along the sea front with spray and a couple of waves splashing over the car and flooding the road.  We heard on the news that night that the road was closed shortly after we had travelled along it! We were lucky.

Jenny, Mark, Bethany, Callum and Elsie arrived at The Nook quite early on New Year’s Eve to see in the New Year with us. We had a great day and all except Mark and Jenny were in bed long before midnight.  New Year’s Day was not great weather wise but we all went for a walk to the very soggy park and then down to the river before returning home.

All in all a very busy but enjoyable time.