Happy New Year!

Yesterday we arrived back in Frigiliana around six o’clock in the evening after spending a wonderful Christmas in the UK with family. We stayed with our younger daughter in Cookham, where we were joined on Christmas Day by our elder daughter, her husband and two children, our absolutely, totally fantastic granddaughters. The seven of us then sat down to a epic Christmas lunch at a local gastropub. Boxing Day, we went across to Clandon - just my wife and I sadly, as our daughter is a police officer and had to work - where we met up with the ex-wife of my youngest brother, and her partner.
The weather was grey and quite cold (to us, at least), but mainly dry. Even so the sun that greeted us when we arrived in Málaga was very welcome. Home, as I say, around six, then off out to our favourite village restaurant for a meal in convivial company before heading up to the plaza in front of the church to eat our twelve grapes as the clocked struck midnight, then open the bottle of cava and enjoy a couple of hours of music, dancing and many cries of “Feliz Año Nuevo!” and much kissing on both cheeks.
And now it’s January 1st and another year to look forward to. I went up onto the roof and leaned on the railings in the sun gazing out across the village, the valley in front of me, the ridges beyond the valley, running down to the sea, just visible in the distance, and then turning to enjoy the view of the mountains to the north and the east, everything bathed in sun. And I thought, “Yes, that was a wonderful Christmas, and we enjoyed every minute of it, but oh it’s good to be home.”