Another year over

Christmas is over and now we can look forward to the New Year, making lots of resolutions that we will never keep and working our way through 2007 as quickly as we have through this year. Isn’t it amazing how time flies?! If you’d asked me a year ago where I thought I would be in a year’s time, my reply would’ve been – ‘still teaching at Patchway, still living in Bristol’ … who’d have thought I’d be here in India?! Speaking of resolutions – I must think of some before January 1st.

Christmas Day was lovely. We woke up at 7 a.m. and opened our presents. Santa was very kind to me this year (and so was Penri). We spent the morning together and then set off to Stephanie and Richard’s house for lunch. We had delicious chilli (I know Chilli on Christmas day) but it truly was lovely. She’s such a good cook. Sophia (their 2 year old daughter) was so cute and wouldn’t go to sleep cause she was too excited with people at her house and new toys and everything. I will come back to this and attach a picture of her playing her keyboard (that we bought her) when I get home (I’m typing this from Penri’s work). She’s so adorable. Anyway, we sat and chatted for the afternoon and set off home at around 5 p.m. Driving down the ECR on Christmas Day you wouldn’t have a clue it was Christmas. All the shops were open and people everywhere going about their daily routines. Can you imagine trying to go to Asda or Tesco on Christmas Day? No chance! In the afternoon we played computer games and I added our new DVDs into our collection and we just relaxed. It was lovely.

On Boxing Day I got up at about 11 a.m. and started preparing lunch. We decided that we were going to have a roast dinner on Boxing Day so we had been out on Sunday to get all the vegetables and chicken etc. Would you believe that our “Christmas dinner” cost us £3.50? That was for all the veg and trimmings! So, back to where I was …. Boxing day morning I started preparing all the food – you know the deal – peeling potatoes (with the new peeler Penri bought me for Christmas), chopping veg and even making stuffing and Yorkshire puddings from scratch. I also got to use my food mixer (again), which Penri said I would never use (just had to throw that in there)! Penri came downstairs at about 1 o’clock just as I was finishing things off. He helped to make the stuffing and mash the potatoes (which I hate doing)! We sat down to eat at 1.30 and listened to some Christmas carols … it kind of felt like Christmas.

So, today is the 27th and Penri is already back to work. I decided to join him in the office and take the opportunity of updating my blog site as I was having trouble attaching pictures from home. I was in working with him last week (sending invoices and stuff) so he could finish his month end.

What else have we been up to? Well, I played piano for the Children’s Christmas Brunch on Sunday 10th December. It was certainly interesting. We (Sarah and I) arrived at the hotel at 7.30 a.m. to find that the room hadn’t been set up and was still in a mess from the Christmas do the night before. There were 120 people arriving between 9 and 9.30 expecting to see Santa Claus. The people at the hotel didn’t quite grasp the urgency of how much work there was to be done. However, credit given where due, after Sarah had words with the manager (and cried) they pulled their fingers out and actually did some work! I have some photos (again at home), which I will attach to the blog later. I got to play carols on a lovely black baby grand piano! It is always fun with kids and quite a lot happened while I was playing … just a few examples … when I started playing (when Santa Claus was coming in), there was a young girl (who can’t have been more than 2 years old) sat next to me who started crying. She was not happy about Santa being there! Also, when I was playing the carols, this little boy came up to me half way through a song and said ‘hello’. I smiled at him and he smiled back and said ‘hello’ again so I said hello back to him and then he just stood next to me and watched me. Next thing I got poked in the bum by a little girl leaning on the piano stool; I missed a cue cause I was blinded by a Japanese lady taking my photo, and everyone sang ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’ wrong even though I’d been through it that morning to make sure my music matched the words they were using. It didn’t matter though – everyone had fun and all the kids seemed happy enough.

I also played the piano for the OWC (Overseas Women’s Club) OAP lunch which was even more interesting as this time the piano was very old and dodgy and some of the notes were way out of tune. We sang through a few carols and they kept requesting things I didn’t have so I just had to make it up as we went along. Again, it was ok … I couldn’t hear them singing because of the size of the room we were in, but Sarah was stood behind me singing and we were in time with each other and it sounded ok from where I was sitting. Although afterwards my friend Yvonne told me that the singing from where she was standing was awful (I’m just glad she said singing and not playing!) Then the OAPs were coming up in pairs and requesting songs which I would play for them so they could sing to all the others. It was only when a dear little old couple asked me to play ‘C is for Christ and H is for Herald’ that I had no clue what they were talking about. Luckily the hotel/club pianist seemed to know it and he played for them and then I didn’t have to play anymore. I had a good time (even if the piano was out of tune).

On January 31st I am playing for the OWC Garden Party, which should be nice. My friend Stephanie (who we spent Christmas with) is a trained singer (she has an amazing voice) so she’s singing and I’ll accompany her. Quite looking forward to it actually although we seriously need to get some practice in beforehand. Also, Penri’s mum arrives on the 30th January, which is really exciting, so she’ll be able to come and watch. It’ll make me more nervous, but I hope she’ll enjoy it.

Not much other news to write about now but I will be more active in updating my blog more frequently … there’s my New Year’s Resolution right there!