poplar road

Thanks to everyone who has sent us cards and called or e-mailed to encourage us and keep in touch. We had a quiet Christmas Eve, moving our furniture into our new family room, solving two out of three mysterious happenings (that goat again!), finding and decorating a tree, and taking in the sights at the BC Wildlife Park's WildLights exhibition. Here are more photos to share – which we have very much enjoyed doing via this weblog over the past three months.

We hope to be able to share our new place in person with many of you very soon, as the "guest suite" is the next space on our to do list. But better late than never… so if you don't make it up here to enjoy the sunshine this summer, please consider yourself invited to our first ever Poplar Road Christmas Party, 2005. We've already been given notice, you see: the first card I opened said, enjoy the peace and quiet this year, because next Christmas, "company's coming!" And we'll be glad to see you!!

Richard baked a ham in orange juice and cloves, with brussel sprouts (for me), peas (for him), mashed potatoes, and glasses of cranberry juice and 7Up. We had a little toast to our first meal in our dining room, with our first real tree presiding over our new family room, and our new kitchen fragrant with the scent of fresh-baked mincemeat, lemon, and butter tarts. Tomorrow morning Richard is making an extravagant Christmas breakfast of croissants, cinnamon buns, and eggs Benedict with fresh home-made hollandaise. And while he's doing that, I'm going out back to the acreage to treat Smoky and Supper to a couple of the Macintosh apples we picked at the beginning of November, to start a new habit of getting some exercise and fresh air every morning.

Here is our new room, hastily decorated with what I could grab out of boxes in a hurry, and I was still in the midst of hanging ornaments when Richard began taking pictures. The floor got its last coat of "cardamom"-coloured paint on Wednesday evening, and was still tacky when we moved the couches in with the help of neighbours Bud and Brian on Thursday night. What a joy to walk in our front door this afternoon and be able to sit down on the couch, turn on a Christmas CD, and open your cards in the comfort of our very own space.

That's all for now, it's almost midnight and Santa needs help wrapping Richard's present to go under the tree. And there's one more glass of eggnog with my name on it. We're going to stay home and enjoy the day tomorrow, and then Richard may be taking the Unimog to a ski resort to show off the plow and blower on Sunday. (Richard has asked me to make the first entry in the "Shop Talk" category this weekend, a picture of the Unimog taking on a snowbank… look for that soon. And with luck, more snow pictures in general as it is getting COLD outside.) If the roads are in good shape I'll follow along in the truck as he's going to leave the Mog with them as a demo… so we may have a nice winter drive on Boxing Day, meandering back home.

Our plans are to be in Vancouver for the evening of the 29th, possibly earlier if Richard does leave the Unimog for a demo and takes the rest of the week off. So, the annual Christmas Sushi has been postponed but not forgotten: we're on for dinner on Thursday, December 30th. Call us to confirm a time, we're thinking about 6:30. Richard will make a reservation so if you let us know you're coming, we'll have a big enough booth. And if we don't see you then, let us know your plans for New Year's Eve….

Be well, everyone.

Cheers!