Cookie Sugarsocks

We were rather disappointed on Saturday that we couldn’t make our traditional annual trip to Aberfoyle to purchase our Christmas tree. This was because of a truly appalling weather forecast, which included not only the possibility of heavy snow, but also “freezing rain”, which the BBC radio weather report assured us would turn into a sheet of ice as soon as it touched the ground. *  We decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and decided to support a local business instead, the festively named “Elfie Trees”, which is a short walk from our house.
We found it easily enough because there were indeed a few elves hanging about the entrance, and in fact it was a really nice wee set up, with a Santa’s grotto and shop as well as a decent choice of Christmas trees. One of the elves looked rather familiar and turned out to be our lovely neighbour and trusty cat-sitter, Tina. We found out that her elf name is Cookie Sugarsocks, which is not something that we will let her forget in a hurry!
Ally, Davie and James soon got the tree set up in the lounge and we lit the fire and spent a very pleasant afternoon decorating it, listening to our good old Christmas music CD **, and playing Trivial Pursuit (a blast from the past!) Then Marjory, Forrest, Jenny and Lucy came round for a Chinese meal later and we all watched the final of Strictly Come Dancing, which was great fun.
Sunday has been a lovely day. I wasn’t very enthusiastic when James decided that we needed a trip into town to finish off the Christmas shopping, but actually it went extremely smoothly. We were both in quite an inspired mood and were very happy with our purchases. We finished our trip with tea and scones in the café in John Lewis, at a wee table overlooking all the Christmas lights in Buchanan Galleries. Back home, both Cat and Chanel had arrived in Cambuslang and so there were a lively group of seven of us when Grandma came round for tea. Grandma was on good form, chatting away, and we all enjoyed Cat’s home made brownies with ice cream.

* the weather didn’t turn out as bad as predicted. The snow fell much further north than us, and the road conditions weren’t too bad. However it would have been very dreich on our outing, so we were still happy with our decision.

** Ally always claims that his favourite Christmas song is the almost forgotten "What are we going to get for 'er indoors", a humorous festive song from 1983 by Dennis Waterman and George Cole from the old television programme "Minder." I think that he's being ironic.