Over 50 friends and family descended on us at fforest for this New Year (some of whom were invited).

Walks, food, drink, rain, wind, mud, shoes, dogs, fire, damaged vinyl, full contact board games, intelligible conversation, intelligible dancing, parents setting bad examples. Grandparents, grandchildren*, dogs. (*not ours-yet)

Structural & spiritual integrity of farmhouse fully tested.

Special thanks:
To the inglenook d.j.’s: ‘scarfy’ king, Island ‘why don’t you do it?’ Joints and ‘I didn’t scratch it, I made an intervention’ Turk.

Capt. ‘pyro’ Phil for creating the napalm dripping torches for the pub to house procession. No-one caught fire, although there were some spontaneous combustions later. A new tradition that we will now claim has been going on at fforest for at least a two centuries.

The youth for their dedication to endurance testing the comfort of the beds.

The sauna boys for bringing out a side of me I never knew existed. You know who you are, I’ll never forgetthat precious afternoon x. (nick I accept your price for the pictures)

Aplologies:
to jack and holly for asking them to go out before midnight with coal, whisky and bread to ‘first foot’ (Scottish tradition) but then forgetting about them till they were banging on the windows at 12.15 (could’ve been worse).

Dictated to nurse Tucker during interruption to my bed-rest remedy in a sanatorium somewhere in the Swiss alps 7/01/2016.