Toulouse the ongoing voyage...: Flights - Non; Fun

Well what a palaver getting back to the UK turned out to be, having to be on a web meeting between France and the USA until 8.30 on the Friday evening meant I had a flight booked for the Saturday before Christmas. The "plan" was to return to London and attend the works party in Langley, then stay the night there, Sunday in Chesham and then Monday through to Friday in Wales with the parents.
That was the plan... a lovely text from BA at 3.00AM on the Saturday informing me the flight was cancelled - I thought the snow looked a bit heavy on the news the evening before, and having had Skype and Face book updates on the ongoing weather in and around the Chilterns things were not looking good. It was all the harder to understand as here we were having a very mild spell with temperatures around 15degC.

So an eventful week ensued with trying to rearrange flights - third time lucky and five days later in the end, but I at least had a warm house, bed, food and drink to tide me over those few days, unlike some of the poor people in the airports.

Having exhausted all manor of possibilities for driving, flying via Germany and into various parts of the UK, the last flight on Thursday the 23rd was going to be the last chance before having to knuckle down and go and shop for a Christmas dinner! Luckily other than a one hour delay I got back to the UK on the 23rd and was collected by my very good friends Al and Sal in their 4x4 - although we saw plenty of snow as we were on approach, Heathrow seemed to be totally clear!!!

Anyway there ensued a fantastic week of relaxing, leisure time and meet-------- NO hang on there followed a week of COOKING and hunting for LIMES that had entered some parallel universe!!!

Pantomime and a Curry on Christmas eve started the week off in the customary(?) fashion.

Actually it was brilliant to be able to cook again, not something you tend to do properly for just yourself and luckily my compadre in our (!) kitchen and I worked amazingly well together, around each other and generally had a great laugh. Catering for Christmas day, whilst some people played golf on the Wii and raced there old man down the slopes at Aspen or somewhere!
Mince pies, Local fresh Turkey, Sprouts, Cranberry sauce, Cumberland sauce, baked glazed ham, parsnips roasted, loads of roast potatoes, bread sauce, gravy, Frankfurter sausage rolls with mustard dip, sausage meat sausage rolls, (still no LIMES), chestnut stuffing, 18th century stuffing (style not when it was made!), Sage and sausage meat stuffing and every trimming and goodies that you really do need to ensure you don't let the calorie uptake slip!

Boxing day friends, including of course my very dear friend Shaun (hee, hee) and Mr Hopalong himself of the Men of Harlech and sheep are worried country... Also great to see lots of other fantastic friends, and without divulging too many details I think these words say it all...

Salivating Army and I've dropped one...

Sales were partaken of and a few quid spent and loads of new clothes bought at London Colney, we then hit the kitchen again to make a rather fantastic spread for the Pantomime cast and crew who all came up on whatever day it was at that point!!!

There was also a great walk through the snow that harked back to evening exercise walks from a few years back - before someone moved to "Upper Chesham" and the road with no surface...

A truly fantastic Christmas and a very, very enjoyable week, despite so much of it being in the kitchen (that is not a complaint!)
Below are some pictures taken on the walk, and I played with photoshop for some just to have a play.