December 30th 2025

On Tuesday the 30th of December Lee, Peter and I headed off to Cannon Hall. The night before, I texted my friend Gillian to see if she wanted to meet us there. They recently moved only about fifteen minutes away from us so Cannon Hall is really close for all of us. She was happy to say yes, so we made plans to meet. We met about eleven and walked over the river. It was a bit muddy in the field but not too bad. Peter climbed a tree or two and Gillian's little girls looked for fairy doors. 

You can cross back over the river so we did that, I've never done it before and it's quite a way but it was manageable for me which I was pleased about. We walked back along the path. Peter was playing with Gillian's little girls and racing them and stuff, it was fun. 

When we got back to the car park we went into the playground for a bit. Gillian and I could sit and chat which was lovely, we kind of let everyone else get on with their things. We said goodbye to each other at maybe 12.30, as we had to get home.

My friend Helen had been visiting Leeds with her wife and child, and had mentioned popping in for lunch on their way home. They arrived not long after 1pm, and had brought some supplies with them to go alongside ours. I haven't ever met Debs or Zara before so that was really nice. We had a good chat!

I had to take a phone call from the hospital at 2pm, from the breast clinic. As my mum has had breast cancer twice now, I'm considered at quite a risk, so they want me to take tamoxifen as a preventative for the next five years. This had been going on since July, and what with one thing and another and other meds that I'm on, it was a bit of a faff. I had to swap my antidepressant and then the doctor wanted to take to the gynaecologist because of my uterus problems, and my IUD. I was frustrated because I felt like no one was talking to anyone else! But the Dr on this day feels like the benefits outweight the risks for me so she prescribed the medicine for me, and told me I could pick it up the next day. It wasn't a long conversation, but I was glad to get it done. 

When Helen and co left the rest of us just chilled out for the rest of the day. I was really glad I had got out for a walk as I felt all my muscles had needed stretching! For tea we wanted Chinese takeaway so we tried calling a place in Stocksbridge but it seemed like a busy tone, so we drove through to order. But when we got there it was closed, oops. There was another Chinese takeaway nearby so we went there instead. I had to go in in my pyjamas to order, sorry people of Stocksbridge! It was really delicious food, though - Peter said it was among the best Chinese food he'd ever had! 

Standing on the little stone bridge just crossing the river

Peter climbing a tree, as he does

Me and Gillian

Looking across the parkland

And another weird just after we had crossed back over the river

Family Christmas Time - December 29th

On Monday the 29th of December we had the whole family round to celebrate Christmas! Lee and I are so thrilled that we can all fit into our new house, I don't think we'll be taking that for granted for a while! We had invited my mum and stepdad, aunt and uncle, both my cousins, Rob's wife Beth, and their toddler, T, for the day. Peter and Lee and I were already at the house, of course, so we tidied up for a bit before everyone arrived at about 11.30. 

For lunch we decided to do hot sandwiches, roast potatoes, and a bunch of other delicious things. We had that pretty early, when everyone had settled in a bit. We managed to get everyone a seat which was actually impressive - four people in dining chairs, three on the sofa, and three on the bar stool chairs tugged into the middle of the kitchen so that we could all see each other. Lovely when we're all together! 

We opened some presents. T liked his Buzz Lightyear a lot, which Lee and I had bought him. He was also allowed to play Lee's ukulele which he was thrilled about. I got a table for lacemaking from my aunt and uncle, a Bruce Springsteen record from Peter, and placemats and coasters from Rob and Beth (they have bees on!). Rob and T and Neil went out for a walk to try to get T to sleep, and then Beth and Peter went for a little walk too. 

We had tea about 6pm which was basically all the leftover things in the fridge chucked on the table with a free for all. I had bought Neil and Peter these flying fan ball things, they were incredibly fun to play with so we played with them outside a little bit. They were fun! They made a weird noise though. T made Peter doing some drawing for him which started off like triangles and boxes and then he wanted a shark. So funny! 

Everyone left about 7.30 I guess. Can't remember! But it had been a good day to spend all together. I was wearing a Simply Be top that I got from Levy Masked Fat Swap last April and hadn't had chance to wear yet. It is very festive though! My skirt is a Scarlett and Jo one and I do love it, but it isn't very easy to wear so I don't wear it often. I had tights on too of course. 

Once everyone had gone and there was just me, Lee and Peter left we got into our pyjamas again to relax. As you can see, Poppy was tired too! 

Obligatory team photo in our living room. I really hate those curtains, we will have to replace them in 2026

Baby T playing the ukulele

And playing with his Buzz Lightyear!

It was hard to take photos of the weird flying things, but they were fun to play with. Lee managed to get it into next door's garden so we had to go ask for it back! 

Peter drawing T's requests after tea

Obligatory Christmas selfies of me and Peter. They used to be on the sofa at my grandma's, but now we're at mine

My outfit as we said goodbye - I love the blue green of the top. My hall table has seasonal decorations on too, you can see the little tree and the gingerbread house

And finally here's Poppy, all tired out

December 27th and 28th 2025

On December 27th my mum and stepdad left our house, where they'd been since Christmas Eve. My mum says it's a very nice hotel and she will be back! Haha. It was so nice to have room for them. We had leftover pastries for breakfast. 

Then my cousin Peter arrived about 12.30! He had been in Leicester with the rest of his family for Christmas, and was coming to us for New Year. We were pleased to have him visit for so long, but had warned him that we both needed to rest (2025 was a hell of a year!) and wouldn't be doing much. We planned lots of downtime watching films on the sofa, and Peter was fine with that.

He and Lee headed to Tesco for supplies and I sat with Kiki on the sofa. Then we watched several films and played games and just hung about with each other, which is one of my favourite things to do with Peter! It was a chill day after the chaos of Christmas.

On the Sunday we had made plans to go to Leeds to see our friends Leanne and Adi in their new house. Peter was fine to come along with us, but he decided to go to see his parents who were on holiday somewhere near Bakewell. So we set off separately. 

Leanne and Adi's new house is lovely and we just sat and chatted. We had some picky bits to eat. I admired Leanne's huge collection of York Ghost Merchant ghosts, which is huge! I have four and I love them, so it was nice to look at them all. 

We got home around 4.30. I had worn a comfortable dress as I was quite in pain so I didn't want anything complicated. It's a summer dress really but with leggings underneath I was fine.

Peter was already at home, having taken a spare key, I had promised him that we could do some crafting while he was here, so we did some soap making. Most of it turned out fine but we had some problems with one of the batches. It still smelt nice though. We left it all to dry until the next day. 

We ordered Indian food for tea which was delicious, and then again we just chilled and watched films for the rest of the night. 

Kiki has turned into such a cuddly cat since we moved into this house. She still doesn't like to be picked up, but she does come and sit on me a lot when I'm snuggled under the duvet on the sofa, and she often sleeps on me overnight. Too cute! 

Peter making Poppy stand up like a penguin

Leanne's amazing ghost collection. I love the silver polished one

Making soap

And here's my dress - as I said, really comfortable was what was needed!

Boxing Day 2025

In my family, Boxing Day often looks exactly like Christmas Day only with more leftovers and a bit less stress. It's always lovely, and we always have a good time. We had a slow start to the day - I needed a shower - but had breakfast and then made lunch again for about 1pm. I made cauliflower cheese but the sauce didn't really thicken, but it was fine. We had bunches of leftovers to eat. 

Then in the afternoon we went to the pub! This was my suggestion but I think I might have started a new tradition! I wanted to do it now we live in Penistone which has several decent pubs, so I persuaded everyone else. We wanted to go in the brewery tap place, which I haven't been to yet, but it was packed full so instead we went next door into a pub that's alright. It was busy but we got a table and had a drink. It was nice! Lee took a quiz book so we asked some questions and enjoyed ourselves. It was a nice change. 

Kiki was sitting on me a bit in the afternoon which is always nice. She often sleeps on me, too. She's getting more cuddly as she gets older (she turned two in January 2026 so she's little still). Lee was wearing his new Die Hard t shirt that my mum gave him. I was wearing one of my favourite Scarlett and Jo dresses which was my first one; I love the prom dress feel of it with the netting underneath and so on. 

I had ended up with three different types of Irish cream before Christmas so my stepdad and I sampled all three of them just to make sure they were nice!

It was a nice, chilled day. 

All four of us sitting round the dining table when we had lunch

Kiki with her little feet tucked in

Lee's new t shirt, it's funny

The Irish cream sampling party

And finally my dress and tights just before bed

Christmas Day 2025

And so it was Christmas Day! I love Christmas and really wanted this one to be lovely in our new house, and it was. It was quiet with just the four of us, but lovely. We were up and ready by about 10am I guess, and had breakfast first. I had got croissants and nice pastries and stuff. Then we went to open some presents. 

I got lots of lovely things, including this pit check from Dodworth colliery. We used to live in Dodworth so I'm so glad to have this! My mum also bought me this RM pin badge, which obviously must have belonged to someone who worked for Royal Mail, but as those are also my initials I'm glad to have it! My mum bought me a printers tray, too, which I'm going to put on the wall and fill with lots of lovely things. I just haven't quite decided yet where to put it. Lee bought me a voucher for a spa in the Lake District so it will be nice to go back there later in the year. Oh and Jacqui bought me the Bluey hot chocolate set - I love Bluey, all my friends know this now which is borne out by the fact that Sarah bought me a Bluey blanket for my birthday!

We had our starter at 1pm, we had pate and cheese and things on crackers. Just nice things we all like. Then we started cooking our main course. Lee and my mum had faffed over a turkey but as I don't eat it I just didn't really pay much attention. I also decided to just have stuffing for my dinner rather than buy a nut roast or something. I never really enjoy it so I had stuffing, Yorkshire puddings, all the vegetables. It was lush! I think the table looked pretty good too. 

We opened more presents after lunch and just chilled out. We had some dessert at some point and had wine and so on. It was just a nice day. At some point I put my pyjamas on but before that I had been wearing this dress from Simply Be - although I think it's one of the brands - that I often wear at Christmas. It's fancy but comfortable and I really like it.

The sky was quite clear later on so we went outside to look at the stars. We got quite a good view! There's not a lot of light pollution around here so we decided we will definitely make a date over the summer to lie in the garden and stargaze!

I found this cup at the back of the cupboard and pulled it out as it was festively themed!

The NCB pit check from Dodworth Colliery, what a thing to own! 

The dining table at lunchtime, it needed to be extended! 

Lee got me this Bruce album on vinyl too 

My Bluey themed gift 

In this gorgeous dress before I got changed into my pyjamas

RM badge

Oh I did one book swap this Christmas instead of loads, this one was organised by Gwen and Janet but my partner turned out to be my friend Sarah Beth, so that was cool. They sent these gorgeous books, all of which I am looking forward to reading

Orion later on in the evening

And another constellation, not sure which it was 

Christmas Eve 2025

The few days before Christmas were a bit of a nightmare - things happened at work and I ended up sorting it out and staying there ages on the Tuesday, so I was glad to be off work for a good while after that. Lee had to work Wednesday morning but I just hung around the house. In the past few years Lee and I have been out for lunch on Christmas Eve and I was keen to carry on this tradition. It just sets the tone for Christmas in some way for me. It is nice to just spend the time with the two of us before seeing tons of people over Christmas, and it gives a nice ending to the busy-ness of working before and everything. So I had booked a table at the Waggon and Horses which is a lovely pub in Oxspring. It's really close to where we live now, and I had been there for craft club Christmas dinner a couple of weeks before this. Lee likes their Yorkshire puddings so he readily agreed.

We got there about 1pm and shared some Yorkshire puddings to start with. I can't remember what I had for mains, I am really failing as a blogger here and didn't take a photo! Oh well, it was delicious. We got home and I made my lemon cheesecake. It is famous in our family for being delicious and it's even been featured on TV! Sometimes it doesn't quite set properly but mine all looked amazing and set perfectly. I ended up making three as there was a lot of mixture, but I knew they would get eaten. One of the amazing things about our new house is that our old fridge lives in the garage and I usually keep it full of wine and other drinks, but it helped at Christmas to have space for puddings and so on. 

My mum and stepdad arrived about 3pm I think. They, like us, were excited to spend our first Christmas in our new house! We helped them unpack everything and then we just relaxed. We had all had big lunches so we had just bits for tea, and lemon cheesecake of course. We unpacked all the presents round the tree. One of the great things about this house is the size of the living room. It's huge, but also somehow feels really cosy? I love it. It was especially cosy with a Christmas tree in it. The tree was new and it's massive! Katniss claimed one of the presents for herself and slept there for ages, so cute. It was a nice, relaxing day. 

I ordered this Yule log from a woman locally and she delivered it while I was at work I think. It was basically just ganache inside with some brownie bits, so very rich. I only had a bit but Lee liked it and my cousin did too

The Christmas tree. Our living room is on the first floor of the house and has a Juliet balcony. We need to cat proof it but when we do I'm looking forward to having these doors open in the summer. The tree looked gorgeous!

My nails for Christmas were an OPI mini in a lovely glittery red, it lasted well and was very festive

Yorkshire puddings for starter

The hearth in the pub - which is a really old building - had this gorgeous decoration. It was so cosy and lovely

My cheesecake was a success! 

My mum and stepdad had been on a cruise for my stepdad's birthday and they bought me these tiny crocheted earrings, aren't they so cute?

And finally here's Katniss on one of the presents as we relaxed in the evening

Weekend in Durham Day #2

As I said previously, we were up in Durham the weekend before Christmas visiting Lee's family. We stayed with Lee's dad and stepmam, Mary, so when we woke up on Sunday morning we had breakfast with them and sat chatting with them for a bit. Then Lee's dad Michael had booked us a table at Il Cancello which is an Italian restaurant in Beamish village, near the museum. We hadn't been before but I generally like Italian food, so it was fine by us. 

I can't remember what I had to eat at all, but I know it was nice. It's over a month ago so I really don't remember! After we had finished Lee's dad and stepmam were rushing off somewhere else so we said bye to them and then went back to Lee's mam's house for a bit. It was less crazy there than the day before with just six of us there. It was nice to see them. We didn't set off home very late and we got home quickly. I had a relaxing bath with a festive bath bomb, which was nice!

I've got both outfit photos in this post because my last post was long enough without me adding to it. On Saturday I was wearing a dress from Yours that I've had about a decade. It's black on top and then a mint green skirt with black patterns on the skirt; I love this dress and wear it a lot! 

On Sunday it was a bit more of a casual outfit - I got this top from Sainsburys just before Christmas. It was in the sale so was only a few quid. I like the peach colour and the sparkles. Then I got this cape type jumper from there too. It was great to put on over Christmas, it has a slight sparkle in it. My skirt used to be a dress and I wear it a lot because it's easy to chuck on. 

Oh I was wearing these earrings at the weekend too. I got them off Vinted and I'm not sure I would have bought them if I'd seen them in person first because they are quite big and heavy. Cute though!

Here's the Yours dress I was wearing on the Saturday, I must wear this more

In the restaurant on Sunday with Lee's dad and stepmam

The fog came in while we were in the restaurant, we couldn't see a thing! We got to Lee's mam's safely though

A new peachy top with sparkles and three quarter length sleeves, and a skirt that used to be a dress

And with the caped jumper on top