St Stephen’s Day - Boxing Day

We celebrated St Stephen’s Day at Ruth and Mikael’s with the full turkey dinner with all the trimmings. We didn’t see much of Ruth for the first half-hour as she raced around in the final stages of producing this wondrous meal with the help of eldest daughter Pia. Once we were all sitting down with platefuls of food Ruth assured us it had more-or-less cooked itself, and was no trouble at all.  I’m not sure I believe her.
The guests had brought a large selection of desserts (See Jan’s blip for ours) and even after the turkey dinner I thought it only right to dutifully try a little of each dessert; all delicious I can report.
It was lovely to see their three children, who we have known most, or all, their lives. Now the two oldest have grown up into very nice people and flown the nest and the youngest is still at school but following in their footsteps. One of the many joys of Christmas is the family gathering together.  But back to the start of the day….
It started with coffee in bed, and sun streaming in through the open door to give the room a golden glow (As in Jan’s blip yesterday).
After a while I decided to get outside and enjoy that sun on my face. Jan was nearing the end of her impossible-to-put-down book so I left her happily reading and I headed down the hill to the big lake. There was no wind at all so it was lovely to be out walking, despite temperatures around -15°C. There is absolutely no warmth in this midwinter sun but it feels good psychologically to have it shining onto the face. I wandered about fairly freely on the frozen lake. There’s one narrow place where there’s a current, and therefore weak ice, but it’s very obvious and otherwise the ice is thick (maybe 30 cm) and stable. I took these pictures 15 minutes before the sun reached its rather low zenith. I love the long shadows, be they from distant trees or, as in the extra, from reeds sticking out of the ice.
Time to get the skis out I think.
PS This is a backblip from yesterday.