Yuletide update

We think we have a solution to our ‘family together for Christmas’ dilemma. Hannah has found a nice little cottage available to hire for a fairly reasonable price. It’s on a big farm, where they have four of these separate buildings that used to be lived in by staff and have now been converted into holiday homes. Two of the others cost an absolutely fortune to hire for the Christmas week, and the third is being used by the farmer’s family, but luckily for us this other one is being used as digs by visiting actors in a big pantomime. The theatre company have already paid for it to be used throughout December, but obviously the performers will be going home for a couple of days to be with their families, so we can have it from Christmas Eve til Boxing Day afternoon for a few hundred quid.  It’s self-catering, but even allowing for the food bill, it still works out as an inexpensive way to have the whole family under one roof. We were prepared to spend £60 each on a three-course meal out somewhere; this way we get two nights of accommodation for not much more. Sophie has already offered to cook for us all. Nathan has to do some churchy duties in the morning, but it’s not too far away from their home so he can nip off for a couple of hours and be back for lunch. We can all chip in for the grub, I’ll use my 20% staff discount card to get it all a bit cheaper, and we can hold up there for 48 hours and have a merry old time fit for a Dickensian festive feelgood novella!

I’m looking forward to it already.

RC 6-11-19