Suddenly it was time to hop on the plane and head back to the UK for the first time in nearly 4 months. I had a hectic two weeks catching up with family and friends all over the country and very nearly had a white Christmas! After enduring freezing conditions and frosty decks on the boat we drove into snow up North.
I was finding the cold a massive shock to the system which explains my generously donated Arsenal/Where's Wally hat and general Michelin Man style appearance over the holiday. We were made fun of a few times but I put it down to jealousy. However as soon as we got to the boat and the temperature plummeted I realised this had only been a warm up. We went from log fires to the suspicion of ice inside the windows on the South Coast.
However we had promised ourselves a sail and a bit of frost wasn't going to stop us!
A very wrapped up Salamander team headed out onto the ocean wave for a beautifully sunny sail out the the Isle of Wight and the Needles.
I think I would have struggled to fit on any more layers but it was practicalities over style and mind over matter time.
Mum is now the proud owner of an iPhone after a dramatic upgrade from a nokia brick. These shots are training day 2 with the camera after some mishaps involving involuntary videos with the commentary 'I don't know what it's doing here, can you sort it out please?'. Good progress!
It was great to be back on the water and next stop on our whistlestop tour was up to winter wonderland in Yorkshire. After a few dicey incidents skating down the pontoons with heavily laden trolleys full of luggage we set off.
We arrived to find poor Alf struggling with the conditions, the snow was a bit deep for his little legs!
We took New Years Eve preparations seriously with an emergency trip to Morrisons for lottery scratchcards and cocktail ingredients for a three generations games night. I was completely baffled by Bananagrams which is like scrabble without a board at triple speed. The pressure pushed Dad to try to get away with CAKE spelt as CEKE and MANS.
With one of the team of cousins in South Africa we were promised a video call so raided Grandma's hat, scarf and even wig collection to try and present a crazy British family to scare her boyfriend's family. It could be argued that the disguises were unecessary to achieve this aim but we decided to go all out. Unfortunately technological issues meant we only had a phone call which was nevertheless highly entertaining as South Africa are a good few hours ahead of the UK. The scratchcard syndicate was also successful, after a quite a lengthy stretch trying to explain the rules to the more optimistic family members. We recouped expenditure with a few quid to spare.
By the time we'd had a quick look at some baby photos and seen the London fireworks on the telly it was all a bit much for little Alf.
New Years Day was another lovely day with yet more family and there was just time for a prank call posing as a BT service man from the South African boyfriend to get out of hand and result in a very irate Mum hanging up on him in disgust. The major sense of humour failure at being asked in depth security questions and threat of further action by 'BT' unless we complied didn't go down well as the call interrupted Emmerdale so he had to phone back before giving the game away.
We then popped into London before flying back to Barcelona. It was Christmas take 2 in a brave restaurant that hosted us, our Christmas tree, crackers, presents and general overexcitement for a good five hours. We like to take these things seriously!
Two weeks wasn't long enough and I arrived back in my new flat in the city centre ready to sleep for a week but with my CELTA course, new jobs and catching up with everyone it's been running around like a headless chicken time.
I'm really enjoying being back, even if I do miss people like this one... I've even found baked beans at a non-extortionate price so there's no stopping me!
