Made a lovely Christmas Mushroom pie (found the recipe in Cranks Bible*), spent most of the day preparing it then went for a walk this afternoon before finishing cooking it.

Opened the bottle of Chateau Peyrabon 2002 that work gave me as part of my Christmas wine to go with it.

Am lucky Christmas is only once a year. I'm addicted to Christmas pudding and brandy butter, so if it was more often I'd be at least twice the size I am now if not more.

Had a lovely conversation with my niece over the phone this morning (the 3 year old rather than the grown up ones). Santa had been and apparently had brought her some nice presents, including a pink watch (she hasn't noticed that it's stopped, but then again she can't tell the time yet so it doesn't matter...). It's amazing how you can give children all sorts of expensive presents for christmas and they can quite easily be nothing in comparison to some free gift...

* - definitely recommend to make if you have a copy