Thursday and Friday

On Thursday we had a family from church over for a meal and we played a few games with the children. I made some vegetable soup and bread and cheese, nice and simple after all that festive fare! We had fruit salad and Christmas cake for dessert.

D and C have two little kids aged 3 and 6, two giggly girls who climbed all over their Daddy when he sat on the floor. We remembered what that was like! We played Taboo, which we got for Christmas, girls against boys. The girls won. I guess it's true about female communication skills being superior to male! C and I chose precise, descriptive wording and the boys were like, 'It's the thing you put on your stuff, to make it, you know!' No wonder they lost!{g} The little kids had fun holding the squeaker and watching the timer. They loved squeaking us out!

I was happy to realise that I had not got stressed about having this family over. My main problem with hospitality over the years has been that our house is smaller, more cluttered (books all over the place, ours and those for sale) than everyone else we know and we have a very tight squeeze at the dining table and no whole set of anything (plates, chairs etc.) I also don't seem to be able to keep my home as clean as I would like, so it's usually a mad rush to clean the house before people set foot in it and by then, I'm so stressed, I am snapping at the kids or freaking out because Jamie brought home the wrong type of broccoli from the supermarket. {sigh}

But God has been changing me lately. I seem to be less stressed, almost relaxed about it. I know this is Him, not me. Because I still care about my guests, still want to get things 'right' for them. But it's not such a huge deal if things go wrong any more. And most people don't seem to notice the non-matching plates.{g}

Yesterday, we drove to visit Jamie's older brother in his new home. He lived in Harrow all his life, just down the road from the family home in which Jamie was born, until 6 months ago. He has moved further away from London but still within easy reach of 'the city' (the financial district of central London.) He cooked a great roast dinner for us, including his legendary roast potatoes. I don't know how he does it but they do taste great!

Andrew has a very different life to us. He is not married and lives alone. He spends a lot of time out socialising with his friends and works long hours in a telecommunications job in the city. We only see him once or twice a year, as he seems perplexed by children, even teenagers, and we seem to have less and less to talk about as the years go by. But after the ice was broken, Jamie had a reasonable chat with him in the kitchen, I think. A pleasant visit.