Our (Mud) Island Adventure: Birthday and Christmas Follies

Hello Dear Friends,

As the dust settles on a fantastic December season, we wanted to share some of our adventures with you as usual. Its been a whirlwind of parties, family visits, dinners and celebrations. We have of course missed all our friends back in South Africa, but we promise we did the best job we could to make up for not being at home. It has taken some time to write the blog as we have both been very busy and focussed this January.

Christmas is a special time in any country and its no different here on Mud Island. I won't get into the debate about how commercialism has overtaken the religous aspects of christmas, because here political correctness has modified christmas to within an inch of its existence. And yet it is a very special time, celebrated in style by those who observe the day. From late November, people were already decorating their homes, store fronts had turned Christmasy, and all the usual Christmas themed adverts started appearing on tv. However, there are some things the Brits do better than anyone else we have experienced. When I say decorated their homes, I mean not only do people put up Christmas trees, but they also decorate their homes in hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of coloured string lights. Ok not every home has them up, but there are so many people who do it, you can be in no doubt about the season! Some homes just have strands of light, some have Father Christmases, snowmen, fairys, nativity scenes, reindeer and all sorts of shapes and stars adorning their homes. We think its fabulous! The other thing they do well is Christmas music. I am sure the DJ's all have a collection of the Christmas classics hidden in their attics, and sometime in November, after a few whiskeys and a mince pie or two, they all climb up into their attics and dust off the old LPs and take them to work. In addition to a dedicated music channel for christmas music, all the radio stations play all the standards, from "All I want for Christmas" to "I'll be Home for Christmas" to "White Christmas" to that old Wham! chestnut "Last Christmas". I mean repeatedly and all the time! Sammy and I always break out the Boney M album to put up the christmas tree, this year it was accompanied by Micheal Buble's christmas album, and about a million other christmas songs put on a loop by the local DJs!

So what have we been up too? Well, lets go back to my birthday weekend which we spent in London. Sammy let me decide what I wanted to do for the weekend, and naturally, I let my stomach do the decision making. And so it was that we went and stayed with my Cousin Andy and his wife Hen, and enjoyed a great evening with them and our great mates Keith and Gus, at my favourite Thai resturant in all of the world, Yupa's Thai Kitchen. If ever you are in London, its an absolute must, and don't forget to let us know you are going, we have been known to make the 4 hour return journey from Bournemouth just for the food there! Oh, before we did dinner, we were in Regent street drinking in the atmosphere, and also having a few pints of beer with our brother in law, Roland, who was in town briefly before going on to Cambridge for a conference. After a some great laughs we made our way to Yupa's for the evening meal. On Sunday morning we met our mate Shaun at Harrods, and had a good browse around at all the christmas goodies. I made the mistake of passing through the perfumery on the way to the Egyptian Elevators, and did not make it to the other side without denting our credit card with some Christmas pressies for Sammy. Next up was a visit to my favourite little Italian spot in Putney called Il Mascalzone. My brother Cam had introduced the place to us a few years ago, and we have been going back ever since. We met our friends from Bournemouth Rich and Carmen (we meet a lot of people! but this was organised) and Shaun and had a fantastic afternoon with some excellent nosh. Before we left for home, we popped into Covent Gardens for a present Sammy wanted to buy, look out for some pictures below of the whole weekend.

On Christmas eve we went across to the Isle of Wight and spent Christmas eve with Conan and his family. It was awesome to be around kiddies who were so excited at the prospect of Father Christmas visiting the next day. Conan and Kerri had done dinner for us, and Conan and I entertained ourselves practicing making (and drinking) dry gin martini's that were the starter drink for Christmas Day. The kiddies were brilliant and managed to make it all the way to 7am before they were allowed to come downstairs and open the mountain of presents that awaited them. Its always special to watch kids open their presents, and this was no exception. At lunchtime, we all moved over to Mark and Jo's home for a slap up full house christmas lunch. Mark cooked a huge turkey on the Weber, and although he knew what he was doing, Conan offered random bits of advice which were smiled at and ignored throughout the process. Piles of veggies, a sublime Ham cooked by Kerri and lots of dry gin martini's were prepared. The turkey was out of this world, seriously the best turkey I have tasted, and the whole meal was brilliant. I know this because I made a pig of myself and ate enough for 4 people. And as has become tradition at Mark and Jo, the late afternoon lunch turned very festive, and we all sat down in the evening and watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, with Mark pouring endless glasses of red wine and champagne. We crawled home with rather large hangovers, happy and still full from the night before to spend the night at home before the second part of our amazing christmas holiday, which will follow in another blog! For those who we never got to say Merry Christmas, we are now! Much love as always Rich and Sam.