Elizabeth’s 13th birthday and a Hogmanay ceilidh

Welcome 2023 and happy hogmanay! Yesterday was a crazily busy day. It started early with cake-baking for Elizabeth’s birthday. She turned 13 and I finally got to hand over the ant colony which is thankfully still alive. She is still pondering a name for the Queen and her empire. I made a chocolate cake which got lots of praise so I think it must have turned out well.

Elizabeth seemed happy with all her presents.

Elizabeth wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) for her birthday so after lunch we all went to Geek Retreat on Union Street to play. The game lasted 4 hours and they all enjoyed it.

While they were playing I dashed back home to make curry puffs for dinner.

After dinner we went to a ceilidh in Midmar which started at 8pm. We were late because it was -3C outside and I hadn’t driven the car for a while which meant it was severely iced up. There was ice on both the inside and outside of the windows and even the doors were a bit stuck. I was so busy scraping it all off that I forgot to lock the front door to our house when we eventually left.

You know those times you go out and think, “Did I turn off the stove?”, “Did I lock the back door?”, and you’re never quite sure if you really did but you turn around anyway and discover you did do it and were needlessly anxious. On this occasion I knew for certain I had not shut the door. Fortunately we hadn’t gone far before I realised. We drove back and not only was the door unlocked it was also slightly ajar as the kids were the last out and didn’t close it. Usually Ben is last out but he’s in New Zealand at the moment on a work/visiting relatives trip. It’s too expensive for us all to go so we stayed here.

The ceilidh was fab and a wonderful way to bring in the new year.

My friend took this next one.

There was a countdown to midnight with a big ball of balloons tied to the ceiling but the release string failed so someone had to climb up and set them free manually.

We also won three prizes in the raffle! It must be my lucky year as they say how you bring in the new year sets the tone for the rest of the year. I’ll have to buy many more raffle tickets this year obviously.

We didn’t get back home until after 1am which is way past my bedtime. On the way back we saw several groups of people walking home looking very drunk but when we got out of the car we discovered the pavements were really slippery so maybe they weren’t that drunk but were just slipping and sliding on pavements? I can’t imagine trying to navigate those pavements when drunk.

Happy new year everyone!