Christmas

 Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you've all enjoyed the chance to relax and have a break over the Christmas holiday. With Christmas plans thrown into disarray just days before the big day, I have been reminded of the hope that Jesus brings on the day we celebrate His birth. It has certainly been a rocky week with Surrey going from tier 2 to tier 4 within two days and the massive disappointment that brought. Chris managed to get to his parents before we went into tier 4 lockdown and Mel was able to get home to Kent as she is providing critical support for her grandparents. Unfortunately Jo was unable to get home and Raywin was unable to join us, so Jo and I have had a very odd Christmas together. We spent Christmas Eve learning DIY plumbing as our kitchen sink has blocked - sadly not fixable by us - which has meant all washing up is now happening in a tub. Not ideal. I decided to watch midnight mass on the BBC, live from Bristol cathedral, and it was both the most formal, and informal way to see in Christmas I have ever done. Formal because it was a full Roman Catholic service, and informal because I was in my pjs in bed! 

Christmas morning saw us both Skyping our respective families and opening our Amazon parcels we'd saved ... whoop canvases and paints as we are going to attempt an online painting tutorial later. Despite the 1 degree temperature we went for a walk up on the Merrow Downs and had some fun with panorama shots before it got too cold! Back home we played some board games, skyped our other housemates, and began to cook our roast pork dinner. We had braved the supermarket on Monday and only just got out without having panic attacks. WAY too many people for social distancing to be possible and we had to make rapid fire decisions about what we wanted to eat. It was kind of nice to not be trying to replicate either of our Christmas traditions and simply enjoy a new experience. I also felt very British to be watching Strictly Come Dancing on Christmas day as we finished up the cooking! We had just sat down to our lovely roast when, flicker flicker. Blackness. Out went the power. We were glad of our advent candles and battery powered lights on the tree! Thankfully it wasn't out for long though it went out twice more during the evening - something to do with a fault on a high voltage cable. After more calls to family we settled into Britain's Got Talent Extravaganza and had a lovely rest of the evening. I definitely appreciated the slower pace of the day and was blessed to spend the day with Jo too.

Obviously with all the restrictions things have got pretty bad here again and it does feel scarier than it has done for awhile. We are unable to do any of the trips we'd planned which is a major disappointment for me. It will be interesting to see what my final month here is like but I think it will be good to be able to just slowly work through my to-do list rather than having a mad dash at the end. I would appreciate prayer for countries to reopen borders before it is time to fly as I currently can't get home through Singapore...Anyway, I'm sure it will all work out whatever happens!