Christmas Day this year was so much fun! The day began with breakfast of smoked salmon, cream cheese and bubbly which is the only tradition we now subscribe to. Dean is Chief Bottle Opener with my role being Chief Washer Upper.
Considering we’ve kept to ourselves on the rally and not joined in with anything (as we meet campers every day during the season, we wanted to have a bit of time on our own while we were away) we’ve met some fantastic people. A lovely couple across the way called Evelyn and John invited us for coffee and Christmas cake at 10am hence why we were up so early! When they arrived on site they came and said hello, initially as they have a scooter and were admiring our trailer.
They are both in their 70s but you would think they were both a good 20 years younger – they have such a happy disposition and you can’t help but love them. In the picture below, Evelyn is the beautiful lady in red and John is in the picture on the right, enjoying the lovely cake.
Another couple we have become friends with are Brian and Kate, who invited us a while ago to join them in their tradition of a Sherry toast at 11am. We met them at the Fish & Chip night when we first arrived and they are kindred spirits. They had insisted we brought nothing with us and we thought we were going round for just a toast…but they had laid on a wee buffet, with parmesan crisps (home made), vol au vents filled with egg, prawns and pate, asparagus wrapped in Iberico ham and anchovies!
We had a great chat with them and their two dogs, Rosie (Patterdale cross, not sure with what!) and Penny (Shitzu) demanded our attention too. Rosie likes to catch Champagne corks and Brian was happy to oblige..
Penny is a bit of an old lady and just likes to be cuddled, and I was happy to oblige…
The afternoon was ticking by now and dinner still had to be prepared so we said our goodbyes and started back to the ‘van, only to be invited for a drink by Al & Isobel. We liberated our bottle of bubbly from earlier (we didn’t drink it all at breakfast as we knew we were off visiting and wanted to pace ourselves) and went and joined them sat out in the sun. We didn’t stay too long though as we really did need to eat after all these toasts, but dinner was easy as we sat outside while the Moroccan Lamb tagine slowly bubbled away.
Dick and Joan joined us for a glass of wine while dinner was cooking – they’d already had theirs and were looking forward to their dessert! We finally ate about 5 o’clock then retired inside as when the sun goes down the temperature really drops. Brian and Kate joined us for the evening and we had a lovely time talking about our (and now their) new lifestyle and what their plans are for the future. We had such a great day, really busy but enjoyable as everyone was so relaxed.