Christmassy.

First things first, our front door has finally turned pink.....or magenta:

In our house, the colour terminology depends on where you went/go to school. Pink may be considered a particularly feminine colour yet magenta, of course, is manly as it's the colour of valour, of blood spilt on the battlefield. It's all about  perception. The girls in our family are happy with pink, yet the boys console themselves with magenta.

The sample pot that I had decided on, way back in the dim reaches of time, turned out to be all wrong, so the painter had to randomly conjure up this precise shade.....by mixing up a bit of this and a bit of that. Of course I had to endure lots of eye rolling when I explained that I was a simple girl and all I wanted was bright pink that could be passed off as magenta.....after the requisite four coats were applied he admitted that he was 'quite chuffed' with how it ended up. Me too, I love it. And in case you were wondering, so do the boys.

Why does our tree always undergo a dramatic growth spurt just at the beginning of December? I'm sure that it grows centimetres at this time every year, moments before we lug it inside to be all loved up. This was our tree, the first year it did Christmas with us.....nine years ago:

And this is how it looks this year:

 

So, while we've been wrapping presents and cooking....today we made Turkish Delight and all day I've been in denial about how much gelatine, or rather gronund up animal hoof and horn, is actually needed to get it to set. Yuck/yum.....I've also been reminiscing about Christmases around our tree, which for the rest of the year sits forlornly potbound in a corner of the garden struggling to receive the attention that it craves. Miraculously, this year it has performed again and has now outgrown the whole family....and that's no mean feat.

In a blur of daydreams of Christmases past, I've been thinking about that first year when we lived over the river in a different house, when the not quite one year old was covered in the horror that is a bad dose of chicken pox and how the fairy sustained scorch marks on the pink tulle layers of her dress when she ventured too close to  the cooktop in the only just finished in the nick of time kitchen.....about the year when all of the hints and innuendo paid off and there was a pink KitchenAid under the tree....and about all of the hysterically funny dress up concerts over the years that it has inspired our children to perform.

So then, because Christmas is such a bittersweet time for tripping down memory lane, I started remembering all of the people who have helped us celebrate our own version of Christmas around this very same tree. About how, against all expectations, we have been so fortunate to have four amazing children to share our lives with. And about how my dad won't be joining in. This will be the fifth Christmas that he's been gone and while it's not as raw as the first...or even the second...there is still such a sense of absence always present in the shadows. For me, the magic of Christmas seems to be equally about the creation of new happy memories to add to the memory bank and an opportunity to unashamedly dip in and reclaim old ones.

My heart goes out to anyone reading this who has lost a loved one this year and who will be experiencing their first Christmas without them. I remember so vividly what it feels like, I think it's because Christmas rolls around, without fail, year in year out and acts as a prompt for hope for the future and an opportunity to indulge in recollections of the past.

Rx

Industrious.

So don't be lured into falsely assuming that it has all been fun and frivolity around here. Far from it.

Over the last two days I have done four Bikram Yoga classes. Yes, call me insane, however, I must say that my abs feel amazing today.

I have also been slavishly labouring away at putting together all of the info for our very belated tax returns. I get an instant headache just thinking about it. Thankfully, I'm making progress and the first installment will go into the accountant today on my way out to lunch. Relief.

I have also been unable to put this down:

Have you read it? It spans a cast of thousands - the first Duke who set the whole Blenheim Palace extravaganza in motion; Winston's mother, Jennie, who after her first husband died found not one but two husbands who were twenty years younger that her only to die after having her leg amputated; the 9th Duke who married the reluctant American heiress, Consuelo Vanderbilt, for nothing more than her pots and pots of money and then had a second wife, Gladys, who had over fifty Blenheim spaniels which, after she became loonily eccentric, had free run inside the palace and turned it to utter squalor. Apparently the stench after she was evicted out was unforgettable. Yet, let's not beat about the bush, this book was mostly about the most famous Churchill of all - Winston. Years ago we went to Blenheim and saw the room in which he was born yet to be honest, I really haven't given him a second thought since then. Now I'm keen to know more - how could you not? Fascinating.

And then today, Toby's class had an end of term morning tea so last night I made these biscuit schoolboys. I used one of Nigella's very easy recipes (How to Be A Domestic Goddess p212) and then serendipitously found a chocolate pen in the deepest darkest reaches of the pantry. What luck. The children thought I should attempt the school crest on the tee shirt. I know my limits.

And I'm on my second sample pot of magenta paint for our front door after feng sui dictated that it should be magenta (or silver or gold or white or yellow):

Who knows what they think in at the Dulux Trade Centre where I've been twice now to discuss the perfect shade of magenta. It's not as simple as it might seem - I've have had to wade into the world of paint bases and other secret paint business as not all colours can be used externally. It's true - you learn something new everyday.

R