Once again they performed it in the Junior school theatre. This year they were all less shell shocked and trod the boards like true professionals.
Sue and Suresh arrived at the beginning of December which was exciting, particularly because it was Suresh's first visit to Shanghai and we were looking forward to sharing it with him.
There were a few mad days of sightseeing and then they headed to Guilin for a few days. Oliver and William broke up from school and began to help me prepare for christmas. We had decoration sessions with Henry, Charlie and Ria and we also baked lots of mince pies just before the oven broke again!
Sue and Suresh arrived back in Shanghai and the weather began to get colder and more Christmassy. We went for afternoon tea on the 39th floor of the JW Marriot which was a fantastic way to start the festivities.
Our new oven arrived just in time for Christmas eve. We speant a lovely day on Christmas eve with the Hughes family. We managed to cook the ham before the door of the new oven broke rendering it useless. Luckily our neighbour offered their oven!
On the evening of Christmas eve a group of us went to our local for a few drinks which was fun at the time but didn't feel so great when we were up at 6 the next morning (before William and Oliver!!!) for Sam to run the turkey round to next door! We then slumped on the sofa waiting for the boys to wake up and realise it was Christmas which they did by about 7!
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| Making trifle |
The morning was spent playing with stocking pressies, eating smoked salmon with scrambled eggs and drinking bucks fizz. The food preparation ticked along nicely and Sam disapeared at intervals, in his dressing gown, to next door!
The rest of the day followed the traditional route of food, a walk, pressies and more food.
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| Watching the pudding go up in flames! |
On Boxing Day we dispensed with tradition and Sam, Sue and Suresh went for a walk along the Bund and the boys and I met them for a dumpling lunch! After lunch we hit the fakes market!
The following few days were spent doing some more sightseeing and on Sue and Suresh's last night we had a takeaway. The following morning I travelled to the airport with the luggage and the rest travelled on the mag lev at speeds of 400km per hour!
New Year was celebrated with a party of friends who had stayed in Shanghai for Christmas at our house.The boys had Henry staying as poor charlie was in hospital (he is now fully recovered) and Sam and I aimed to get to bed as soon after 12 as possible. After everyone left at 1 we cleared up and decided that a skype session with the party at Poyle Road (Smiths, Clarks, more Smiths, Jarman's and Matt!) would be a good idea. At 2am here 6pm there we had a half our chat, it was impossible to tell who had had more to drink!!!
The three boys woke up at 6!!!!! I'm not sure how Sam and I managed to keep going after so little sleep but we went to lunch at a friends and kept going by taking the boys for supper at the pub!
The next week before school began was spent relaxing and catching up on sleep!
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