Christmas and all that jazz

Christmas Day went really well, our cooking was perfect. The meal is legendary - the whole family has been asking us about it, knowing the details already.

We went to Blackpool on Boxing Day. We opened presents at Raine's mum's house. I'm excited about my bean in a tin, which I grow over a few months to reveal a secret message. We're trying to decide where to position it. Our house is worryingly damp. We have some plants which never need watering. Although the bean shouldn't go dry it'll probably need a lot of light, so I think it'll have to go near a rear window.

After present opening we cooked a new meal for Raine's family - kind of shepherds pie, but instead of gravy it has chicken stock, tomato puree, worcestershire sauce, onions, garlic, and flour to thicken it; mash on top. It was really tasty. Raine said it tasted like fajita pie, which is a fairly accurate description.

We had a family meal round at my Grandparent's place on Friday. It went pretty well. Almost everyone is happy with us now - it's strange to think that they have a problem with us because we're two girls, but they're starting to see we're not two headed, childeaters, just two people in love. There's just John that has a problem, but he's becoming really isolated. For the past couple of Christmas he's given me socks with 3D Reindeer on, these are hideous, and £1 from Primark. When I got to my Grandparent's John's youngest child, Ali, presented me with a present. It felt suspicously sock like. I opened it in the car as we were leaving, it wasn't raindeer socks, it was 3D cat socks, with bells on. My mum liked them, so her's they became.

Whilst in Blackpool I got a new computer. I've had my old one for nearly 5 years, which you can't complain about for a laptop. It's had a few problems over the past few months, the final straw being a faulty space bar - you have to hit it 3 times, hard, to get a single space. Not great for my train of thought.

I spent yesterday evening putting music on the new laptop. I've got nearly 3 days - 65 hours - worth. I'm so happy:-) It's one of the joys of having 120GB of space rather than 18!

Hope everyone has a good new year. We'll be spending it at home, with a good meal and wine.