So that's a prezzie for you...a prezzie for me...

Good tidings readers, firstly an apology for not blogging in the past 10 days, for christmas is upon us and I've basically not been in!

Right then, on with the post, which starts as I finished at yet another Christmas do, this time an upmarket do at the Botanical Gardens, which looked as gorgeous as it normally does, all lit up for the festive season, but we were there for the food, party and drinks (in that order)

We got there just before they called everyone in, which was nice coz we had a chance to have a good ole gossip about anyone and everyone (no change there then!). As there were around 40 of us, we were spread over 3 tables and there was a good mix of people in there, from vet's (who all seemed to have been genetically modified to look like various animals!) to the token chavs who drank as much as they could in about 2 hours before realising that it was around the £3 mark for a pint, and so vanished to some dodgy watering hole round the corner (good riddance!)

Anyway we all had little gold boxes with various party poppers and odd-looking balloons that either burst or shot off like a scud missile to some hapless waiter (so I heard of course!), so onto the meal and it was a very nice one, not one of the vacuum packed nonsense u tend to expect at a christmas do. There were vegetarian options too, which was a nice change to the norm, but I opted for the cream of vegetable soup to start with, which was very nice, then the turkey with stuffing, sausage, mashed spud, veg and roast potatoes and loads of gravy, which was simply divine and really good quality. For desert there was a chocolate swiss roll-type-thingy with those black cherries that u get in a black forest gateaux, in a sauce, which was forced down, but greatly appreciated!

Anyway onto the all-important bopping, and another rare thing, an actually good cheesy disco, yes they do exist! They had a proper wide range of music, from the modern trash (seriously, does justin trousersnake really think we don't know he's got the same voice changer as cher!?), to the proper disco stuff from the 80's, and a good sprinkling of christmas songs. We even asked for some fairly obscure - but no less boppy (is that a word?...it is now!) songs, to which the DJ duly obliged. The only downer on the whole night was the fact that the DJ insisted on having his shirt well and truly open, showing off what happens when u can't admit to having a beer gut when ur in your 50's!

Anyway a good night was had by all, so thats all the christmas parties over (well the official ones anyway!)

Right, onto this week then, Monday was a no-brainer, simply for being Monday. Monday can't help being Monday, it was born like it, just like Fridays have to be a silly day for gossiping and generally being silly. Its the way God intended it. Anyway onto Tuesday and Wednesday, which Mom and I had booked off to knock Christmas on the head. Tuesday morning, I woke up, glad that I'd finally had a lie in that I had been craving for, put my glasses on and they snapped....just like that.....it was going to be a 'different' day to what I imagined! So, we both trundled down to DirectSpecs, and lucikly they had a similar pair of glasses in, so we decided that to avoid the problem again, Mom would buy me a new frame for my lenses to go into, plus a new pair of glasses, to be picked up on Friday, for Christmas, which was good because I had been racking my brain thinking of what she could buy me, so that worked out well!

Anyway so then we went into Solihull and blitzed Christmas to within an inch of our Bank Manager's life (for all thats worth!), and were gonna get the Christmas Tree in the afternoon but it peed down so we just stayed in and thought about doing some housework!

Wednesday was interesting, I have a Renault Clio on a 3 year lease deal and received a letter from them on Wednesday morning to say the agreement was due to run out in march so would I like a new one, which was damned decent of them I must say! So after spending the morning getting the Christmas Tree from Woods Farm and spraying it silly, and finishing off Christmas present buying in Stratford-Upon-Avon, I had a wander down to the local Renault dealer, who gave me 2 options, I could either wait and get a brand new shiny clio in March when the new number comes out and choose colours etc for £50 more a month, or I could have the one out the back thats been registered and is ready to drive off the forecourt on Monday...

........ So I'll let you know how it drives in my next post!

Tatty bye bye!