The Morning After

Well! Last night's party at the South-orns' was a big one. I think there must have been 50 or 60 people there, perhaps more. We all enjoyed hot canapes and glasses of bubbly followed by fruit punch (with or without an extra "punch"). In the sitting room, the furniture had been shoved to the sides of the room, which was dominated on the far wall by a huge roaring fire and a 7-foot natural Christmas tree. It was freezing cold as you might imagine. If you looked at the photos from yesterday of the freezing fog and took into account that it got colder when it turned dark, you'll know that it was a good night to be inside a warm house, eating, drinking and chatting to friends beside the stone fireplace.

It was such a good party that we awoke a bit "fragile" this morning. We eschewed the usual cup of tea for a couple of cups of very strong coffee and took a nice slow pace throughout the morning.

Don had gotten up and dressed to go to St. Fillans for the winter league game, but when he went out to see what the weather was like (it looked as if it was raining), he almost slipped down on our back stoop. The rain was turning to ice as soon as it landed on anything. Don turned on his heel (figuratively, in this case) and said there was no way he was going to play golf today. The sidewalks, drives and pavements were ice until about 3 p.m. In fact, when Richard our Postie came with the mail at about 1, he had to walk on the grass or gravel as he couldn't navigate the brick pathway to our front door. He told me he had already fallen 9 times. The sun came out at around 3:30 and some thawing occurred. Now, of course, it's dark again and so there could be some refreezing.

I spent the late morning and early afternoon making cookies, a project I had begun yesterday afternoon. I finished the Good Kind Cookies so today's project was Jewel Cookies with dollops of fruit preserves in the thumb prints on top of each one. (Obviously called "Jewel Cookies" because each one looks as though there is a jewel on top. That's the theory anyway.)

We're about to get dressed to go to Helen and Gordon Rae's for a small supper party. Their Christmas box is all packed and ready to take over. This afternoon Don helped me make labels for the jars of apple butter, one of which will go into each box along with assorted cookies and a few other items. We plan to walk to the Raes' tonight. Or waddle, depending on what the road surface is like. We won't be taking the car.

Correction to yesterday's blog: When Don left to play golf yesterday morning, the car read-out indicated that the external temperature at 9 a.m. was -7 Celsius. That converts to just a hair over 19 degrees Farenheit. It was 20 when we got up today.