A Tale of One Christmas

Christmas Eve's photos have been processed so I can give you an idea of that meal with Hilde and her friends. My little Digital Camera is not very good in the dim light, the flash range is very limited so these have had to be artificially brightened somewhat which rather alters the colour balance. Anyway, the first three are views of the restaurant setting, our table is to the right in the top image where my whiteshirted arm can just be seen poking out from behind the standing figure. The middle photo is our table, I was seated to the right of the Lady in the white jacket and Hilde has her back to camera, sporting a ponytail. Next, a view of the table setting. The folk are all Dutch friends of Hilde so I was unable to understand much of the conversation although both Hilde and the Lady with the glasses spent much time translating for me. I'm not quite sure why it happened but at the end of the meal we joined forces with another table (out of camera in all the shots) and I rounded the evening off talking to an English Woman who's name now escapes me. Finally, to give credit where credit is due, there is a picture of the kitchen and staff. The meal was excellent, Hilde's friend Yvonne, the restaurant's owner (in the black top) excelled as chef and the other ladies made sure the evening went as smoothly as humanly possible. As I've already mentioned, after calling into Ana's Bar and then The Ship (to wish Lisa a Happy Christmas), I got home at just on 2am quite the happy chappy.


While I'm in the mood to upload photos I'll do a couple more for you so that faces can go with names so to speak. First one of (L)Ana-Mary, (C)Favio and (R)Beryl, none of whom require any introduction, they are usually mentioned in all the posts (letters) I write these days. And finally, Hilde, also fairly frequently mentioned here lately. From Rotterdam I believe. Likes a good laugh does Hilde, usually at my expense!! But I get my own back now and again.

Christmas Dinner
While waiting for 1 o'clock to arrive I busied myself prepping the Turkey, the veg and doing a thousand and one other jobs that I found in order to make the time pass. Lary arrived half-an-hour late due to missing the train or there not being one and having to catch a bus. I was watching the steps on the webcam and gave her a quiet "hello" from the terrace to acknowledge her arrival. A little earlier (at 10 to 1) I'd received a txt from Aaron telling me that he had just tried to ring but couldn't get through. I sent back that I would call him on Boxing day as I was waiting for Lary and couldn't talk anyway.