Christmas Holidays

My favorite time of the year is Christmas. Somehow a warm Christmas just doesn't quite seem right. Ideally snow would be great but not quite so in Wales, UK.

My 3 weeks holiday in UK was very good. The flight there was a bit stressful since that my Significant Other flew in a week later. Therefore I was on my own with Eddie on the 13 hours flight plus 3 hours drive from London Heathrow. We got a Volkswagen Passat which is a very good drive. Then again, most cars have got to be better than our current Tuscon.

A very good friend of mine Tabea flew in from Germany to see me for a day in Cardiff, which was really really sweet of her. I also met up with a Malaysian friend of mine who migrated to Cardiff 5 years ago. She took me to a curry house which served seriously spicy curry. I promise that you will never get curry as spicy as this in either Malaysia or Singapore!

Christmas day was spent at my SIL's house in Lechlade. It's a very beautiful quaint village near Oxford. We had turkey (which I dislike) and all the trimmings for Christmas dinner. My husband gave me wonderful pressies such as this spanking new Toshiba laptop and an oven! Of course he did not haul the oven all the way to Lechlade but he presented it to me in the form of a brochure wrapped in bricks laden gift box.

And of course, the very much anticipated Christmas cake that I baked in November. I have been worried that I might have forgotten to lug the cake but thank goodness I did not. Delia's recipe is foolproof - now 2 years running. It's very moist but I wish I have put more brandy into the cake.