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It was fairly traumatic this year. Nana died the week before, so we had to go up for her funeral just before Christmas. We played Spot the Relative, which was useful, as I found out who some of the ones on the wedding invitation list that I didn’t know were.

Came back down again for Christmas itself and to see Puss, who we’d left to her own devices with lots of food and water and a litter tray, which she only uses when we’re away. She prefers to go out to do her business, which is fine by us.

Henry sounded particularly unwell (the exhaust, going by the noise) during the latter part of the journey up north, so I rang the doctor’s and arranged to take him in on the Wednesday after Christmas. On the way back down, I was just accelerating away from a roundabout on the A1, when I heard a different sort of noise. A metal-trailing-on-tarmac sort of noise. This sounded bad, so I pulled up onto the hard shoulder, got up and looked underneath the car. Yup, that would explain it: the exhaust pipe was hanging off.

One expensive phone call later, and the AA man came along and patched Henry up enough to take him home, then to the doctor’s, when they reopened. That wasn’t cheap, either. Still, it could have been worse: there was one car which was going to be sent to the scrap yard because the new part it needed was worth more than the car itself (a Mitsubishi Lancer) and one car which was worth the same amount as the new head gasket it needed plus other work and a tow to London. I wonder what its owner decided to do in the end.

On the Thursday, we went back up north to visit the families, starting with mine, then up to Scotland, then back to mine. The journey up to Scotland was to be the Grand Meeting of the In-laws, in a pub in Alnwick, which is roughly half way between the two sets. It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be. C’s brother wasn’t there, though, as he’d elected not to visit his parents this Christmas. Can’t imagine why.

The cat came with us as far as my mam’s, and stayed with her while we were in Scotland. She did her usual interminable miaowing all the way up and all the way back down again that drives C up the wall so. Henry behaved himself, though.
New Year’s Eve saw us back at home, doing absolutely nothing special to celebrate it. Now, C’s back at work, and everything’s getting back to as normal as it can be.