My Month of December – 2017 Edition

I’ve only just realised that I completely forgot to publish this! Now that we’re two thirds of the way through January it seems a bit late to be talking about December, but I’ve written it so I might as well publish it! Oops!

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December draws to a close, and with it, the end of another busy and rather stressful year. Here’s a look back over what’s happened this month.

The biggest news of December was surely the fact that we finally got some decent snow after a five-year hiatus. It’s the loveliest thing to wake up to snow; I love the silence as well as how beautiful everywhere looks.

There was no snow in Reykjavik, where I spent a few days exploring, ice skating, Northern Lights hunting and Blue Lagoon-ing with my friend Lucy. Read more about our trip here.

Back home, we had a fair bit of pre-Christmas socialising to enjoy, including Christmas parties for our flying school and for my helicopter school, and a lovely evening with friends at the Falkland Arms at Great Tew.

For our own Christmas tree we have a Norway Spruce; they smell so much better than the Nordman firs, and that makes them more than worth the minor hassle of their needles dropping more readily.

I also got a nice foliage holly wreath for the front and back doors.

Amidst Christmas activities and planning, I’ve found time for a bit of flying. I’ve had a few more helicopter lessons, when the weather has allowed, working on various challenging exercises including advanced take-offs and landings, VOR tracking (a method of navigation), and landing and taking off from sloping ground (one of the trickiest things to do in a helicopter).

I also got to fly a Cessna 172 for the first time in years, and flew over my old home town of Charlbury.

I also visited Charlbury by road when I went to get a picture framed at the lovely little shop there. I stopped by the Bull Inn and treated myself to a glass of bubbly by the fire while I wrote in my diary.

I wasn’t needed much for puppy cuddling at Guide Dogs this month, as it’s never very busy during December, but I was delighted to get the most gorgeous litter of Golden Retrievers to end the year with – including this absolute cutie. They were probably one of the loveliest litters I’ve ever met in all my years of volunteering there!

I stopped work for Christmas on the 22nd and since then have mostly been pottering about at home and meeting up with friends and family, including an excellent afternoon enjoying afternoon tea at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park in London with my sister.

Lots of Caribbean posts coming soon!