Christmas 2009

Christmas 2009 was spent at Julie and Chris' new house in Devon aka The Big House! They have recently moved there - well Julie officially moved down on Xmas Eve and Chris will be there on weekends as he needs to be in the London area for his business, but needs must and all that jazz!

So anyway, Xmas 2009 was spent with the family in Devon.

Myself and Rebecca drove down Christmas Eve - Harry had gone down earlier in the week with my Mum, which had given me a few lush days of Sammie time as Rebecca had been with her Dad. Anyway this Sammie time was great as it meant that I could wrap presents in peace and not have that constant fear that one of them was going to burst in on me and cause a heap of questions as to why Santa wasn't wrapping the presents etc.

Anyway, luckily we had a seamless journey, no traffic and no need to stop - aside for a short few minutes whilst we met up at the services with my big sis to complete the final leg of the journey in convoy.

When we pulled up at the house Harry was jumping up and down like a mad thing, really excited to see us, and as much as I had enjoyed my few days of freedom (!) I had really missed him to so me and Becs rushed out of the car to give him a massive hug.

We spent the evening having some food and a few drinkies before putting two very excited boys to bed and then unloading all of the presents from the car and various places around the house Mum and Julie had stashed presents to keep them hidden from the kids. The house looked like Santa's grotto with presents everywhere!!

Christmas Day morning, and thankfully the children were not up too early, they woke around 8am and immediately delved into their Santa sacks at the end of their beds. Harry and Becs where very excited about the presents they received from 'Santa' aka me! We then dressed and had breakfast before diving into the presents under the tree.

Watching Harry open his presents caused a bit of an emotional overload for me and I got quite upset - these were the moments that Richard dreaded missing, and at that moment I missed him so much and felt so sad that he was missing this and that Harry was missing having his Dad get excited with him as he ripped open presents (especially the Lego and Transformers stuff that Rich would have probably loved more than Harry!).

My plan after presents was to take Becs and Harry down to Berryhead to go sit on the rocks and have a chat with Richie on Xmas day. So we piled into the car with Danielle and set-off. About 2 miles up the road however we got stuck!! The roads around Julie's house are very narrow country lanes and very undulating, the route we had taken meant we had to climb a steep winding road and unfortunately it was icy, and all my car wanted to do was slip back down and skid about. We therefore had to turn around (no easy accomplishment on a narrow country lane covered in ice) and head back home. We were out over an hour and had only managed a couple of miles!!! When I got back I got a big hug from my Dad and had a few tears, I felt like I was letting Richie down not getting across to Berryhead. But we decided to wait until Boxing Day and head across with Mum as well.

Christmas Day then passed in the usual format, a bucks fizz, a game of pool, loads of food, glasses of wine, loads more food etc etc! The kids had a whale of a time running around with their new toys (Harry particularly loving some Ben10 laser guns which we were all ready to throw out the window after aprox 1 hour of play!!).

Boxing Day after breakfast we headed back to Berryhead - taking a slightly longer but safer route this time. It was a beautiful sunny and crisp day so once we arrived and was beside the sea it was as breathtaking as it is in the Summer. Me, Danni, Becs and Harry climbed down to our usual spot on the rocks and had a few melancholy moments thinking about Richie before Harry got bored and began scaring us he walked along the rocks continuously getting far too close to the water! Danni therefore took the kids up to the hotel so I could have some peace and quiet and sit with my thoughts.

I often question if I did the right thing scattering Richie's ashes so far away from home, but the moment I am there and have some time to relax and think I know it was the right decision, its so peaceful, beautiful and full of our memories that it was defo the right thing to do.