Good morning dear reader and Merry Christmas, I hope that you had the most splendid of days and that your boxing day hangover isn't too bad this morning, if it is then I suggest a quick Bloody Mary might be just the ticket, I'd have one myself but I need the coffee first!

Yesterday exceeded all of my expectations, we had a truly brilliant Christmas day, a little different to the last 15 years but really, I think having friends over for Christmas is such a brilliant idea that I want to do it every year, I also want to have an open house policy at Christmas because I truly believe that no one should be alone at Christmas.

I didn't take a lot of photos yesterday because to be quite frank if I wasn't cooking or eating I was generally kicking back and having fun.

Obviously there are just 1 or 2 photos of Holly, she's so blooming funny and cute, she was like an overexcited toddler yesterday and definitely overtired by the end of the day, so much so that she didn't even wake me up until 8am and even then it was by jumping on the bed for a huge cuddle!

I think all of the above photos were taken on Christmas eve just in case you're wondering why Looby is dressed and then in pyjamas and then dressed again.

Christmas day started off at a really respectable time, in fact it was around 9am when the kids finally got up, Holly and I had a lovely hour on our own having cuddles from about 8ish, it was certainly a very gentle start to Christmas day.  First present Looby got was a unicorn, she requested a unicorn specifically but because I couldn't fit a real one in our house I thought a knitted one might work just as well.

Abigail doing her self tickling face....no I don't know either!

Holly got a lovely Christmas outfit to wear and it was greatly admired when we went for a lovely Christmas morning dog walk down to the park!

Despite what you would think Li and I only drank 2 bottles of Prosecco yesterday, it seems we're quite good at fun family portraits and the ones with me in them were taken by top photographer Looby, I wonder if I could send her to future portrait sessions.

I have to say that I really excelled myself with Christmas lunch yesterday, a huge rack of pork was a massive success, Iain and Looby both has poussin and I don't think anyone left anything, it was simply yumptious!

Holly loves Li's daughter, new best friend!

and in the midst of all of the Christmas chaos Looby set up her foot spa and read a book whilst we all got vibration related illnesses, how noisy are foot spas?

We played festive bingo afterwards for chocolate coins and then we settled down for Dr Who which was pretty good, I'm not sure it was my favourite Christmas Dr Who but to be honest I need to watch it again when I can properly concentrate on it.  After that everyone watched Miranda (recorded for later for me) while I made a huge Christmas buffet supper full of yummy treats though we all mainly just picked at stuff!

Today is all about taking it easy, the girls are going to their dads for Christmas number 2, Li is going to her mums for Christmas number 2 and Holly and I shall be very much in relaxation mode, i'd stay in my pyjamas if it wasn't for the fact that I've promised her a very long dog walk.

Whatever you get up to today, have a fabulous Boxing day and I'll be back in a few days with more festive tales.

At home with the Charltons and other random things

It's no big secret that since I started shooting weddings I've always gone to clients houses for consultations and I never really minded although hubby and kiddies weren't too chuffed waiting 2 hours when it started getting dark and they could no longer nash off to the nearest park. The thing is that there's a reason why I always went out. I was pretty much brainwashed to believe that no one would come to my house, that it was dirty and smelly and anyone who did come would turn around, quickly retreat and never come back again. Well tonight I'm taking the pretty big step to start holding consultations at home (EEK< GULP) I've had therapy, I know I'm good enough but I still can't shake the house thing off! The thing is that we're renovating at the moment on a pretty big scale but The Sitting Room and the Kitchen are pretty much finished so why not see people at home, I mean it beats lugging a load of hugely heavy albums all over the north east and if I'm at home it means I can feed my clients cupcakes until they come out of their ears!!

I have a consultation tonight and one tommorrow and the lovely people who are coming have been forwarned that only the kitchen at the livingroom are finished and they''ll have to shut their eyes as they walk through the hall and up the stairs to the sitting-room!

One thing I definetly still need in the sitting-room is some wall art, One of my prints arrived today which I'd had blown up to A3 size but it's far too small, I think I'm going to order a couple of canvases in the new year as I have a pretty enormous wall to fill!

Excitement as Abigail and Laura are angels in the Nativity, Abigail is head angel and has a couple of lines, can't wait for Thursday till the performance :)

Ooh did you know that Rose is coming back to Dr Who in series 4, whats that all about?

Wooo Wooo Woooooooo, Woo wooo Woooo......

Thats the reason that pandemonium has just broken out in our house, the very first look at the new series of Dr Who, yes season three begins on the 31st of March, to get all excited and see the trailer click HERE

To show how excited we are i thought I should share a Christmas photo, this is the one in which Iain got very excited to see a dalek had been left by the big man in the white coat.

On a personal note, David Tennant, Phwoarrrrrrr, say no more ;)