Sunday 23 December 2007

Merry Christmas


The presents are all wrapped and under the tree, the turkey is waiting to be stuffed with my special festive mixture of cranberries and chestnuts and the house smells of home made mince pies and sweet clemantines, Oh I love Christmas!!!

Monday 17 December 2007

Liverpool Nativity

I love Nativity plays, in fact I have even been known to write one or two in my time. But my attempts pale into insignificance compared to yesterday's Liverpool Nativity.
(In my own defense I was writing for 40 preschool children with one volunteer mum playing a badly tuned piano, so it was hardly in the same league as professional actors and musicians accompanied by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra!)
The play for those of you who didn't catch it live on BBC3 last night, was retold using modern analogies. Mary was a waitress at the Seacombe Ferry Terminal, Joseph an asylum seeker and King Herod became Herodia a government minister determined to make a name for herself by tackling immigration.
The music included songs by The Beatles, Teardrop Explodes, Dead or Alive, The La’s and The Zutons.
It was a great production with a host of Liverpudlian actors playing the central characters but special praise must be given to two newcomers Jodie McNee and Kenny Thompson for playing Mary and Joseph so brilliantly.
It made a fitting start to Liverpool's 2008 Capital of Culture program and made this old Liverpool Girl a very happy woman.

Tuesday 11 December 2007

All things festive and a birthday too.

It's a tradition in the Carter house to have all the Christmas decorations up for James' birthday.

Even when James was away at University Dave and I would dash around like mad things to have everything up for the 10th. So last weekend was the big one, as far as getting into the festive spirit. Early Saturday morning we went off to Delamere forest to buy our tree. This is a very serious part of the build up, it takes a long time to find a tree that is just right. It must be big enough to fill the window but not too tall so that Dave has to do his lumberjack impersonations with the axe shortening the trunk so that the tree doesn't poke a hole in the ceiling.

It was a shame that the weather was so awful on Saturday, we were drenched as soon as we got out of the car, and looked like drowned rats by the time we had chosen just the right tree. But Dave proved to be excellent at modeling the trees and didn't swear at us too much when James and I kept asking him to lift the trees out of their little holes in the ground so that we could see them properly then and then turn them through 360 degrees to make sure that they looked good from all angles. I helped to lug the chosen tree back to the car (honestly) and ended up looking like a sodden little gnome in the back of the car wedged between the door and half a ton of woodland!

Later after a reviving snack of hot chocolate and warm mince pies we set to decorating the house, great fun. It seems to take longer and longer every year but I hope that you think it was worth it...we do, the house looks lovely and I can't wait for Lesley to come home and see it.

On the Christmas/Birthday theme, James had the day off yesterday so we went through to the Christmas markets in Manchester. It was the perfect day for wandering around the streets looking at all the lovely stalls, dry and bright but cold, perfect. We warmed up with Irish coffee in the German Market and had a really calorific lunch of spicy bratwurst before looking at every stall in each different market...not sure if it was quite what James had in mind when I suggested that we could go to 'have a look at the markets' but I had a lovely time and we did take a break from all the shopping to warm up in a lovely pub just by the Arndale Centre, so I think I was forgiven.

Thursday 6 December 2007

I've been to the Dentist

Sorry if this posting is full of dribble but I have been to the dentist this morning. My face is slowly coming back to life after the injection but I still look like I've had a stroke....but I'm not moaning, it's my own fault for leaving it so long between check ups....even so, after nearly three hours my top lip is still numb and trying to drink coffee through a straw isn't an option (I haven't got any straws) so I am still dribbling more coffee down jumper than is getting in my mouth, my left eyelid looks like I have had a brow lift (shame the right one still looks normal) but the good news is that both nostrils are now working so I don't have to worry about having a runny nose and not realising it....but I'm not moaning....well not much.

Check out the YouTube videos - the top one is the Dentists song from the Little Shop of Horrors, makes me laugh and squirm at the same time, aghh!