The Day my Toothbrush fell down the toilet!

I suppose I should have seen it coming! Just as I lifted the last Christmas present from under the tree last night it caught the tail of a very special labrador ornament which we were given for our 25th wedding anniversary and it smashed to the ground.For a moment I felt that 25 years of marriage had disintegrated in one fell swoop and I was overwhelmed with sadness. However an accident is an accident upon reflection I realised that the loss of the ornament didn't take away the love and thought which had gone into giving it to us.
The following morning,having been woken by my son, who for the first time ever had waited until the reasonable time of 8.20am before getting up on Christmas day, I went to clean my teeth before venturing out to feed the hens. As I reached for my toothbrush for some reason I let go and it went flying across the bathroom landing slap bang in the toilet!
Things didn't improve much, breakfast passed without a hitch and the children's presents were a success ,at least until my son opened his ipod touch and found it wouldn't work! "These things happen" we told him "We'll take it back with the receipt and exchange it". Cold realisation dawned that I couldn't remember where the receipt was as we'd bought the present in good time for Christmas and in spite of searching for an hour I still couldn't find it.
As I walked the dog later in the afternoon with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and feeling very sorry for myself I realised how silly I was. Despite these minor setbacks we are so lucky. Lucky that we are able to treat our children, lucky that we have so many material possessions and lucky that we have each other and our health. I looked at the gifts I'd received and they said it all. Laid out on the middle of my bed was a sign on which were the words "Peace and plenty!", a DVD on the true meaning of Christmas and a book entitled "The Lilypad list - 7 steps to the simple life". Perhaps someone is trying to remind me to count my plentiful blessings! Merry Christmas to you all, I'm off to buy a new toothbrush tomorrow!

Getting our priorities right! The true meaning of Christmas.

Having spent the last few days cocooned in our cottage making homemade Christmas cards and presents, decorating the Christmas tree and generally getting into the festive mood ,it came as quite a shock today to find myself being jostled and pushed in the supermarket as people frantically dashed from shelf to shelf piling baskets high with alcohol and festive food to feed an army (two armys come to that!)

Now in our house we plan to buy all we need on Christmas Eve. A risky tactic you might think, but does it really matter if we don't have turkey for dinner or they have run out of Christmas pudding? I think not! In fact it all adds to the fun.Last year our turkey was half price only hours before the store closed. The Christmas tree was £5 and despite being sold supposedly without roots it has survived the year in our garden growing new shoots and has taken pride of place on our windowsill once again!

I am glad we decided several years ago to keep Christmas simple. We've made all our Christmas cards and most of our presents at minimum cost and the response we have had has far outweighed anything we would have had if the cards had been shop made. People appreciate the gift of time given in the thought and making of the gift in the commercial world we live in.

Only tonight on the news there were pictures of people in Salisbury who have so little money in the current recession they are having to rely on food kitchens to help them eat. These are normal people like you and me who have lost their jobs or fallen on hard times and are unable to eke out their money to feed their families, whilst shops like John Lewis are advertising 'presents on a budget' at only £19! I sometimes wonder if we have lost the plot?

Christmas is about the birth of a baby boy who was born in a stable amongst the farm animals , it's a time for kind acts and that warm fuzzy feeling of watching the school nativity play where the lamb walks in with his tail wrong way round or Mary leaves the baby off stage and has to run off to retrieve him!So, instead of getting stressed,relax ,forget the unimportant things and enjoy the spirit of Christmas!

Happy Hens , Happy Families

One of the successes of the year was the introduction into our family of Wilma, Pebbles, Xbox and Micro.As you will probably have gathered we each chose a name for our new hens. Wilma was my choice. She is a Black Rock which are supposedly good egg producers and as it turned out she has a disability. She has a turned in foot (we could say pigeon toes if she wasn't a hen ) which forces her to walk (or rather run to me) with an excentuated limp when she thinks food is on the way. Nevertheless it hasn't stopped her of late leading the escape from the chicken run into the field next door where she has merrily pecked away until dusk before scrambling back under the chicken wire to the safety of the coop leaving Pebbles, her more able bodied mate stranded in the field awaiting rescue. I set off down the lane and up the track to the five bar fence and clambered over, straight into a muddy mire as the rain had fallen incessantly for several days. Slithering over the field in the dark I reached the boundary fence between the field an garden to find Pebbles cheekily peering through the fence from the garden side. Once back in the garden I discovered her in the half darkness roosting in a tree! And here was I thinking that at this time of year there were only partridges to be found in pear trees!