I finished my Christmas shopping this morning and cleared off all my work this afternoon. I now have a pot of soup on the stove. I threw all the veggies in the fridge into the pot with some water, and I think I’ll add some mung beans; I can freeze the extra soup for Hubby to eat while he is here on his own. Next up is cleaning out the fridge, so I’ve got room for our Christmas Day food. We head down to the beach on Boxing Day so we need to finish eating what is still left in the fridge before then.

---

We did some easy entertaining on Wednesday. What began with an invitation to a couple of friends to come over for fish and chips and see our new apartment morphed into drinks with about 20 people. We still did takeaway, and it was very easy. A highly recommended no-stress way to entertain! The new dishwasher stood the test, fitting almost all the glasses and plates we used.

---

We had our work Christmas lunch yesterday at a nice Chinese restaurant. The red wine and big lunch did not sit well at running training afterwards. I got a stitch doing the Tan time trial, which is unusual for me.

---

We don’t have any shelter for Riley outside the apartment when it rains, so we are trying to get him to use the kennel we bought. He doesn’t like it, but he likes the training treats I bought recently and has been going in for treats. He’s quickly developed the habit of going in and checking to see if there are any treats in there.

---

When we moved in I planted the herbs that were in this pot into the garden and replaced them with strawberries. I’ve tried a few, but they weren’t quite ready yet. I need to put some net bags on the bunches to protect the fruit until they ripen enough.

---

And finally … have a very

Merry Christmas.