31st December

 

An interesting year! We are back from our Nile cruise with 2180 pictures to sort through and blog at some stage, lots of temples, tombs, hieroglyphs and good food.

 

I will give fuller details next year!

25th December Christmas Day

 

A wonderful day with friends, food and a trip to Luxor. I am blogging this before we set off (midnight) to the airport.

Maddy got games to play, books to read and some assorted bits and pieces, Geoff had brought back some planes so Maddy wrapped them up for him and I finished his plane .

 

As we opened our presents the turkey cooked in the oven and we watched tv. At 1:30 our guests arrived Svetlana and Moussa were first, they brought gifts for us! Amazing wonderful gifts. Then Timothea and Jonathon arrived and they brought a live table decoration and presents as well. Maddy got a wonderful white rose! I felt a little guilty as all we had was a turkey dinner for them (and drinking chocolate).

Around 5 people left and we rested until it was time to pack ready to go on Geoff’s Christmas present, a Nile cruise from Luxor to Aswan . . . . . .

24th December Christmas Eve

 

Today was soooo busy. First I made some deserts for Christmas Day, cheesecake, chocolate slice and some mince pies. Geoff brought the mincemeat all the way back from the UK for me.

 

Timothea held her Christmas party from 3pm until 7pm when she left for the Candle light service. We went from 3 until 5 and enjoyed some scrummy food and conversation. Geoff could see 9 pyramids from her roof!

Then we went home to pick up the guitar (and clarinet) and song books to take to Rocio and Phil’s after the candle light service.

By midnight we were home, as Ibrahim was working at 6am and he had offered to drive us. Unfortunately there wasn’t any time to play so we had to leave without singing any carols.

17th December Carols, Candles and Cake

 

Thursday was the home group Christmas do, our theme for the was Carols, Cake and Candles. As host I dutifully provided the candles and some carols to listen too, I also provided some Christmas crackers as table decorations and too pull. Much to my amazement Ibrahim (Egypt), Svetlana and Moussa (Russia) and Donna (Philipines)  didn’t know about them and the Brits had to explain about the hat, motto and  present. I looked on the internet and it does appear they are a mainly British tradition.

 

Much to my surprise only Margret brought cake, usually we are overwhelmed with cake and have to hand out doggy bags to people as they leave. This time all we had left were Donna’s Christmas biscuits and some sachet’s of hot chocolate to give as a parting gift.

 

For those of you with Facebook Ibrahim has lost of pictures, my favourite was of him using his phone to take one of himself in his his hat!

Geoff has finished school so is going back to the UK for 2 days to pick up our Christmas presents. At least on St. Helena we could rely on Amazon! Maddy and I finish on the 20th. Our Christmas plans are not finalised yet but we will go to Rocio’s on Christmas Eve and have invited Svetlana and her son Moussa for Christmas lunch after that who knows!