Christmas week round up

Can you believe another Christmas is over? After what should have felt like the longest year, I felt it still flew by. Maybe it's an age thing, life just seems to pass you by so much quicker than when you were younger.

I am still on annual leave so I am spending my 'twixmas' catching up with friends enjoying long walks on the forest, writing some blog posts to share some of the many photo's I took. I spent the beginning of my break being the love child of Nigella and  Kirsty Alsopp, baking and crafting like their was no tomorrow. 

These aren't in any particular order (no-one knows what day it is anyway) so I have just posted a mish mash of what my days have looked like.

Eating yummy calorific breakfasts, going for walks with friends and eating cheese and crackers for lunch.

Asides from going out to get some fresh air I have still been trying to include exercise in my time off. I bought myself some ankle weights to up my pilates work outs and I have also been using the Les Mills on demand workouts as I used to do Body pump three times a week back when the gyms were open.

I have definitly put on weight this year as working out at home just isn't the same. I probably exercise more now as I want to do at least 30 mins a day  but without having the proper equipment I'm not working as hard as I would be usually.

I loved laying the table for Christmas day. I have never hosted before so I took it very seriously and made crackers for the table, cloved orange tea lights, cranberry sauce, chutney, biscuits... I could go on! 

The cranberry sauce was really easy and quick to make, I had a bag of frozen cranberries which I added orange juice and muscovado sugar and left to boil and that was it!

We met up with friends and took their dogs for walks.

Christmas crafting.

I saw these reindeer cones on Pinterest and made some for our younger guests on Christmas day.

I also painted some tree slices to decorate the house and table with. I'm not ready to open a shop on Etsy but it would be nice one day!

I made this amazing chocolate yule log, it got gobbled up very quickly on Christmas day! You can find the recipe here

I also made some chocolate chip shortbread which I found online here

More walks to try and burn off some calories!

The meat we had on Christmas day was awesome, we ordered it from Fullers butchers and it was worth the money. The pigs in blankets were more like 'hogs in duvets' as Mr Poachie called them. He was in charge of the meat.

I had some leftover brandy and cream from our festivities and I had finished all of the Baileys we had in the house so I tried to make some irish cream which although is meant to be made with whisky, it tastes just as good. You can copy it from the ingredients I used here

These Christmas crackers were a hit, I think everyone liked the personal touch. I had been saving up loo roll tubes for months! If I made them again I think I will use a more fun wrapping paper and use more personal gifts/toys inside.

I had to make a second batch of these Christmas crackle cookies as they were so good! 

These candles were another Pinterest find. Crafting with long nails is tricky, lockdown life means I can't get to the salon and I have SNS and the last time I tried to cut them down and soak them off it looked horrendous and made my nails so brittle so I want to try and leave them until lockdown is lifted.

You have to have gingerbread in the house at Christmas! We literally have tubs of biscuits everywhere!

Still eating copious amounts of leftovers.

More dog walking.

This was our turkey delivery! 

So that sums up my festive break so far. We are trying to think of what to do for NYE. I am not really into NYE and as the fireworks won't be going off in London so there is no point in staying up until midnight so my preference would be to cook myself and Mr Poachie something delicious like a beef wellington, share a nice bottle of wine and then go to bed! 

I hate waking up hungover on new years day so I would rather be fresh and get out (for another walk) and as we have had to cancel our pub lunch reservation, cook a roast and enjoy the day.

What are your plans? I hope you have had a nice safe relaxing break. Here's to the end of a very bizarre and stressful year. xx