After the fun and excitement of my first Christmas abroad last year, albeit away from Singapore and actually in Melbourne. Where we stayed with friends, enjoying their hospitality and the cricket on Boxing day, this year we travelled back to the UK. It was our turn to spend Christmas with my Stepsons and we and the boys enjoyed some time with both mine and my husband's respective families, spending Christmas in Southport and the New Year in Maidstone.
It was a time for a lot of festive eating, good home cooking and a certain amount of drinking too, for TV Christmas specials of some of my favourite programmes, walks by the sea and visits to a few tourist spots including the Wildwood Trust in Kent. A brilliant place to discover the native wildlife of the UK both past and present if you ever find yourself in that area. I especially enjoyed taking the boys to places local to my home town and being a bit of a tourist there for a change whilst on our holidays.
The weather was perfect for warming drinks and festive food, fresh but apart from a couple of days not particularly cold. No snow (of course) but I loved hearing the wind in the trees, seeing the rain lash down at times, the dark mornings and afternoons and feeling a cool breeze on my face. The novelty of wearing a coat, scarf and gloves again was good too.
Here are just a few photos from the trip and may I take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy new year and the very best for 2012.
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| Southport |
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| The journey South begins |
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| Nearly there! |
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| Not reindeer but fallow deer |
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| Herne Bay seafront |
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| Battle Abbey and the site of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 |
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| A pretty building in Battle |
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| Hastings |
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| The Chequers, Loose Village - just a stone's throw from where we got married last October |
your home looks like something out of a movie set :) Love the setting and it looks nice and cold there.
ReplyDeleteThanks, of course I only post photos of the pretty looking parts. There is plenty there that is not so attractive. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI do enjoy and appreciate being there and not getting hot and sticky all the time.
Ah I love your pictures of England .. it all looks so English!
ReplyDeleteSometimes being away from somewhere makes you appreciate what is lovely about it all the more. I'd never thought I'd miss the open spaces as much as I do.
I know me too, without fail I'm always pleased to see the fields etc. when I go back.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciated that open space when we went to Bali as well which I hadn't realised there was so much of!