P365-2010

And this is the end of this blog, my friends... If you want to see my 2010 daily photos you will have to look somewhere else, as I now have a new website to combine all my blogs and photo albums: here's the link --
http://coolboxuk.accweb.org.uk/

Day 365 - December 31

This year Sean got the honour of ringing the Twelve Midnight Strokes of the new year's ringing in Chertsey and I took a photo of him doing it which is of course rather special... And so this year's photo-a-day album starts and ends with bellringing!

Day 364 - December 30

Okay, the Blue Moon occured on December 31st, not 30th, but I had another important special picture for the end of the year, so I decided to cheat a little just at the end of this project! I really love this photo and wanted to use it, and I think a Blue Moon is really quite special, too, as it only occurs once in, well, once in a Blue Moon...

Day 363 - December 29

I tidied away the presents and thought I first take a photo of the sum of mine for the P365 album - alas, looking at it now I realise I forgot to put in a gift card for WHSmith which I got from my boss (!!!) and which was actually the biggest surprise... And instead I put in a bundle of seed packs which were one of Sean's presents and not mine - oh well... The 2nd photo, not for P365 but just to share with you, was taken on Boxing Day and it was the funniest present we had this year (Sean's, obviously). Apart from that and the seeds all he got was boxes of biscuits and sweets and more biscuits - what does that tell you???

Day 362 - December 28

And on Monday we started transposing some hymns from the hymn book, and also Auld Lang Syne, into bell ringing format as we hope to keep the handbell ringers group motivated to go on practising throughout the year and get better at it, rather than just botching together some carols for Christmas... Let's see if we are successul!

Day 361 - December 27

The days between Boxing Day and New Year are usually very quiet over here and a lot of people stay home with family if they can. Sean was home, too, and I started a dreadful cold so didn't feel like doing anything. We spent most of Sunday watching TV on iBBC, most of it the Christmas programmes which are often kid's stuff (in the photo is "Heidi", quite famous but ironically I'd never seen it before!).

Day 360 - December 26

On Boxing Day we had the usual family-get-together at FIL's house. A few people were ill so there were "only" 25 of us, plus 5 dogs. Every year after the unwrapping of the presents we all have a "paper fight" - you can see the paper balls laying about in the photo and Zoe has just thrown one.

Day 359 - December 25

Christmas Day - my sister-in-law Fiona invited us to have a roast turkey lunch with her family. Bob (my father-in-law) and Jean were also invited so there were eight of us which was quite jolly, especially afterwards when we played a game of Balderdash (Sean and I made a team and we won by half a board which I thought was hilarious! (In the photo: Fiona and her husband Graham.)

Day 358 - December 24

Christmas Eve Special... We rang the bell for Midnight Mass but when we got there at 11pm we couldn't open the door to the tower staircase (to go up and let down the ropes) because something had fallen down inside and blocked the door. There is no other way in than the one door - or the bell hatch in the ceiling which is about two storeys up. (The hatch is the round thing you can make out at the upper edge of the photo.) Consequently, it was Sean who had to climb up the extended roof ladder freestanding against the edge of that hatch, to crawl in and then come down the tower staircase inside to remove the obstacle. I could have kicked my own bumm that I'd forgotten the camera that night (I almost always take it these days), so all I could do was take a photo of the hatch the next day, to document the event. Argh. The second photo shows the door below the stained glass window, just to give an impression of how high up that ceiling is...

Day 357 - December 23

Me and my friend Debs of the church choir, after carol singing.

Day 356 - December 22

This is the "big Christmas card" in church. Every year one of the crafty people in our church makes a big card - this one is actually three cork pinboard hinged together - and that gets put up with lots of gift tags with self-adhesive backs, and some pens. Then, instead of lots of people in church spending loads of money on cards for each other, we write these tags with greetings for everybody and stick them to the "big card", and give a donation instead which always goes to Crisis at Christmas, a big nationawide charity to help the homeless through the winter season.

Day 355 - December 21

Today I spent a good time wrapping Christmas presents - we don't give as many as we used to, only the close family now, but it still takes time. I put them under the Christmas branches awaiting our family get-togethers...

Day 354 - December 20

Our group of handbell ringers were part of a carol afternoon in one of the old people's homes here in Chertsey. It was a good and not so scary practice for playing in the service at church on Christmas Day!

Day 353 - December 19

The funniest shop window display in Chertsey: the carpet shop, obviously. These guys really made me smile!

Day 352 - December 18

My friend Eve's "annual bounty" in the boot of my car. You probably remember that she's a primary school teacher and yesterday was the last day of term when all the kids bring cards and presents for their teacher. The presents seem to get bigger each year - I told her next year I'll have to bring the van because they only just fit into the small car!

Day 351 - December 17

This year's party of the Scottish Dancing group for the old ladies was at Elise's house, very prettily decorated and with her gorgeous little pussycat entertaining us all. Monica and I were the only younger people there but it was still great fun catching up with them all, as many don't come to the dancing often these days. We had this little bring and share buffet - most informal parties here in the UK are bring and share nowadays which is so much better than one person having to sweat through it all...

Day 350 - December 16

I couldn't believe it: the first snow of this winter. We had so many snowless winters here - since I came in 1996 I think it snowed only three times: quite a lot this year in February and in January 2003 (both times a few days, enough to make snowmen etc) and once I think in 2001 a dusting one night. Never so early...so, here's DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS...

Day 349 - December 15

My photo for the day is back to Christmas cards - not writing but preparing for selling: this is the last batch that has come in from my charity crafters.

Day 348 - December 14

We had the first carol service tonight in our church, run in conjunction with Chertsey Museum. They do that every year, and the services are usually nice, with some old articles from the local paper or other reminiscences being read in between the Bible readings and carols, and then everybody walks over for mulled wine and mince pies at the Museum which is just a few houses away from the church. I didn't go this year - I'm just fed up with having to explain all the time why I won't have any wine or sweets at the moment...
Well, so this is the big lighted star that's hanging up in the chancel arch every year for Christmas; and actually, every year there is a debate whether it's a star or a cross!. I suppose it's both, and isn't that a wonderful analogy for the life of Jesus: from the star under which he was born to the cross where he set us free!

Day 347 - December 13

Another uninspired photo, or rather not thought through. This is the basket of Christmas cards which I finished off today, but the photo was an afterthought just as I was about to take them out, put on stamps and drop them in the mailbox on the way to church for carol practise. I wished I'd put at least the stamps on first, and arranged them a bit more interestingly, as it looks really so boring - but by then I was in a hurry...