Christmas 2020

One Month Left and No More Christmas.

Our flights are booked. The freight company is scheduled. We have a service apartment reserved for the 4 nights prior to our departure. All the items we bought for our flat have been photographed and listed on Facebook Marketplace. I've a written list of everything that needs cleaning, clearing and packing before the end of our lease.

It feels like it's been such a long time coming. This year has gone so slow and I feel like so little has been achieved with it. But these next few weeks I know will disappear. For example, I was meant to post this on the 17th, at exactly one month before we were due to fly out - it's now the 21st. Oops. 

That's okay though. This year hasn't gone to schedule, so why should my blog posts?

The icing on the cake that is 2020 came on Saturday that, rather than the 5 day promised Christmas break the UK had been hoping for, we would now get just one. On top of that, we were no longer allowed to travel between Scotland, England and Wales. Furthermore, another level of restriction has been added and a good chunk of south eastern England is going into lockdown over the festive period.

We had planned, months ago, to travel down and stay with my friend just out of London for those few days, as the last chance to see her and her family before we head home. Nope. 2020 had other plans. Not gonna lie,  I sobbed once Cameron and I confirmed the news. 

I took a day to come to terms with the change in plans. To unpack the bag of presents we had prepared. To repack them into a box to send. To put away the outifts I'd assigned for each day we were away. To adjust our mindsets to spending Christmas by ourselves...and think about what grocery shopping we would need to do to try and make it special.

I have since learnt that Glasgow will go into a slightly less-restricted lockdown from Boxing Day for three weeks, so any last minute shopping, any last minute cafe visits, it all needs to be done....now. What a way to finish our tenure here.  

Finding Christmas

 

Half a Household

We are now a household of two. Our best mates and roomies left last Wednesday to fly home. 

There had been a LOT of to-ing and fro-ing in the couple of weeks leading up to their flight as to whether it would go ahead or not. Initially it got cancelled, rebooked, one leg got pushed back by a week, then there was debate about whether they would even leave on the date they were aiming for or if they'd be stuck spending Christmas here instead of in the Aussie sun. 

With less than 36 hours to go, they finally had confirmation the flight was going, albeit to Brisbane instead of Adelaide....

Luckily, the weekend prior, they had done test packs, weight checks, and last minute shop visits (conveniently we did most of that Friday before the lockdown commenced at 6pm), and all the loads  of washing, so come the day before, they just had to tie up the last minute loose ends with work and do a proper final pack. 

Wednesday morning, their driver picked them up at 5:15am and I cried like a baby (again...I am such an ugly crier, so that was a fun new side of me they got to see 😅) and Cameron and I went back to bed for a couple of hours before starting the day at a more reasonable hour. That was the plan; we didn't really sleep so actually we just practised the art of 'toss and turn'.

The house has felt quieter and colder with their departure. But it also now has the tingle of anticipation, of it nearly being our turn to go. In two months, less than, we'll be making the same journey - though hopefully direct to Adelaide. 

With the house half as empty, I am now busying myself with listing things to sell on Marketplace, beginning to think about the deep clean each room will need to go through, about what to pack in our freighted boxes vs what will go in our suitcase, what last minute gifts and souvenirs have to be purchased, and where we want to return to for one last time. 

It's a bittersweet situation - I don't want to wish the time away but at the same time, I am so ready to be home. We've gone through so many lockdowns and quarantines, had so many things cancelled, and just not had the year we had hoped/expected/planned for. Same as everyone, I know. But we moved here away from family and friends, our home, our dog, and now it's just time. 

Not before a hopefully white Christmas though. Or, if nothing else, the chance to wear a Christmas jumper in exactly the right climate...

Our Festive Feasts

After living with two of our best friends for most of a year, we couldn't not celebrate Christmas with them before they go home, especially since none of us know what Christmas will look like.

All of the supermarkets here have epic Christmas ranges that come out and Waitrose in particular have some crazy amazing things that we really want to try, so it was an easy decision to organise two in the weeks preceeding Sarah and Daniel's departure. 

The majority of our weekends have included a roast, but it's all the trimmings that make it festive, so feast #1 included:  

• Homemade mulled wine with a spice pack from Germany, in Sarah and Daniel's Christmas market mugs.
• Baked brie in a seeded sourdough loaf (because we found lacto-free brie that is as good as any other brie and Sarah needs to eat as much of it as possible before they leave)
• A set the table with candles, lights, Christmas crackers and a few special ornaments purchased that day from a local gift store (see the above photo 😆)
• Pork roast, roast veg (potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas, caulifower, brussels sprouts), Yorkshire puddings and gravy
• A peach bellini berry trifle, garnished with edible silver stars and chocolate shavings
• A platter of chocolates - Heston's buck fizz candles, salted caramel acorns, christmas trees, whiskey truffles, Malteaser reindeer, brussels sprout choccies....

The interlude between mains and dessert was provided by the newest chapter (11) of The Mandalorian. 

Final thoughts? SO FULL.

***

Feast #2 was where we learnt from our mistakes. We left a bit more space between each course - an hour and a half between entree and mains, and nearly two and a half hours between mains and dessert - so we didn't feel *quite* as stuffed at the end. 

So how was this feast different from last week's, I hear you ask? Well, it looked a little bit like this:

• Cola ham with maple and mustard glaze
• Potato gratin with a side of roast veg (carrots, sweet potato, broccoli, zucchini and brussels sprouts - okay so this and the Yorkshire puddings didn't change but why fix what's not broken?)
• Dessert was far less cooking intensive and provided by Heston :D We had a mini clementine Christmas pudding and Plant Kitchen Christmas pudding, served with homemade custard. 
• We also had Heston's night before Christmas mince pies - rich fruit and carrot mincemeat with cream sherry, in carrot and caraway pastry with smoky sugar. YUM.

We finished the evening with Monopoly Deal and full dishwasher. 

Not gonna lie, the pudding and mince tarts weree good but Nan's will also be the best, but it was a nice substitute ;) 

GlasGLOW

 GlasGLOW 2020. Wow. 

Essentially, every year (this is the third year) the Botanic Gardens gets decked out with a light show fantastic and this year was no different. With exception of making Covid-allowances (ticketed time slots, a one-way system, reduced capacity, etc), it was a genuinely great night out. Admittedly, it's not for everyone with the story being aimed at younger folk, but given it was our first night out of isolation, it was wonderful.

The night was cold but not freezing, and so still with a few low lying clouds - perfect for reflecting the lights from the Gardens. We had to queue to get in but the line, though easily 200m+ long, moved pretty quickly. And then we began our journey! 

First w were 'reborn' with our superpowers:

We walked through the Pumpkin Patch:

Met our nemesis:

Learnt how to use our powers:

And then had the final face off!

We made a stop before the final battle for hot chocolate but I drank it too fast to get a pic, so instead, here's some shots as we left:

And in case you wondered, we did indeed defeat the bad guys, which had a neat references to Close Encounters of the Third Kind 😂 A lovely night out, something different, and exatly what we (or at least I) needed.