We kicked off the Christmas festivities with drinks and nibbles at the Harris' place. It was perfect for us as we could all cycle there and back so no need for designated drivers. I was just pleased that my back was holding out enough to get on my bike! It was essentially an antipodean affair and it's always a lovely feeling to feel included as an honorary kiwi. Fish is a legend. He turned up with a present for William - Lego - so the wee man was thoroughly entertained with it for the whole night. We headed home around 9.30 and William was like Scooter Boy flying through the deserted streets of Pau.
I'd love to say that we got home, had a dram and all went to bed for a solid eight hours in prep for the big day but William was over excited, over tired and over everything meaning that he barely slept all night. We all spent most of the night bed-hopping and desperately just trying to get some sleep. By 8.30am, he was officially up and it was time to get into the madness.
As well as all the excitement of unwrapping the presents, I also had a turkey to roast in preparation for lunch at the Ramsay's. On top of the three hours kip that I reckon I got, I was burst by the time we left for Lescar.
It was, as you'd expect, full on. Our merry band of foreigners included: Us, the Ramsays, the Dougals, Karen & Paddy, Fish, and Jesse. We had food and booze for Africa; the kids were running riot and Iain and I brought our sleeping bags so that we could let loose!
As the day turned into evening, and each couple took turns to serve up cocktails, the party got into full swing. However, in a perfect representation of the shit show that 2020 has been, the staff all got text messages at about 7pm to inform them that they needed to go for PCR tests the following morning at 7am. Talk about pouring cold water on something?! Knowing they were now all going to have to get up at 6.30am to get to Zenith meant that the drinking needed to slow (or stop completely) and it just put a dampner on the rest of the day. As you can imagine, Iain was absolutely bealing. He ended up pulling the pin early doors and heading off to bed. Karen and I stayed up to ridiculous o'clock drinking Royal Dubonnets and, as you might also imagine, it rendered me pretty useless on Boxing Day. Sleeping on a mattress didn't help my back either. I was really struggling to get moving most of the day. I have such clear memories of my heart rate being through the roof for the entire day. Shambles.
So that was Christmas for 2020. Certainly more social than we'd predicted a couple of months ago but with quite a lot of health related issues hanging over us, it wasn't quite the level of partying we've had in previous years.
Lorna 🎄🎅
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