In her glory!

Don't you love being an embarrassment to your children. My collection of tat can never rival that of my sadly missed friend Ruth. This time last year she was worrying about her younger son's health. He has made a miraculous recovery, but she died in March. I still find it hard to believe, I came across her last year's Christmas card written in her strong elegant script, in purple ink of course. It's as well we don't know what's ahead of us.
Anyway, back to the angel, she came from that wonderful George Street store, Waterston's no relation to the bookseller who had an extra'e' in their name and who had the cheek to open just along the road. Waterston's was a printers and a proper stationer, but also sold some of the most wondrous Christmas'things' and this lovely angel is one of them. She was ahead of her time having fibre optic wings way back in the mid '80s. The girls groan whenever they see her, but my grandchildren share my good taste, lol! She's lasted well.

Today I achieved! I got the Christmas tree up this morning. There's nothing tasteful about that either, it's as over the top as usual! I iced the Christmas cake, just the decoration to do now. That was one of my time limited tasks so I'm glad to have that done.
We visited Bill whose wife died a week ago. It's so hard for the one left when a partner dies so suddenly. They were a very close couple, married for 52 years - their only son died almost 20 years ago so he is feeling very lost. There's nothing to say really, we can just be there for him.
We took a Christmas tree to the church hall - and brought it back again. I made a large lamb casserole for later this week.
Dinner this evening was a treat. I'd picked up some bargain fillet steak in Waitrose at the end of the night on Thursday, so I made a Diane type sauce to go with it. That always makes me think of my mum. When we married in 1975, the flat we were gong to rent still had tenants and only became empty, while we were on our honeymoon on the west coast. So while we were away, my parents picked up the keys and moved us into a top floor flat in Marchmont! Furniture and all!
As a welcome home, Mum left us the ingredients so we could have steak Diane as a treat when we came home, along with a bottle of wine breathing on the worktop. I learned my cookery skills on the hoof. I was only just 21 and had gone from home to fully catered halls of residence to married life and our own kitchen. A steep learning curve, fortunately I liked experimenting and it usually turned out OK. Tonight's steak was good too!
We watched the end of Capture this evening. Thoroughly enjoyed it, recommendations for our next watch please?
Thank you for all the comments and awards for the girls yesterday, I particularly loved the shot of Isobel in dancer mode, and Josie's expression of wonder for Santa was lovely.