A bed of roses

 It was an absolutely beautiful day, today, and we had a really lovely meal at Zorba's. The owners' granddaughter was having a party at the back, so service was a bit slow - but also, I think spending 2+ hours over a meal is what they'd consider normal :D Grandson #1 took the day off work to grace us with his presence and grandson #2 ate everything within reach <3 Oh, and had great fun dropping his dummy for grandson #1 to pick up >D

While the boys watched the football, I played the demo for One Piece: Odyssey, which I found a bit weird. I'm guessing it dropped me in the middle of the game because everyone was at level 40 and had lots of skills. It did explain how to use the skills, and the tactics around which character to use for attack, but I struggled a bit to connect the dots. I preferred FFXVI's approach where you play the first couple of hours of the game and learn how to play naturally, then you got a bonus section with some extra abilities. Anyway, I won't be buying OPO, mostly because I didn't like the visuals.

I've downloaded the demo for Stella Blade, so I'll give that a go tomorrow.

Rather than play anything tonight, I decided to watch something off my Tivo and went with The Father. Olivia Colman plays a woman whose father, played by Anthony Hopkins, is suffering from (I guess) dementia. He forgets things and people, and sometimes it was hard to know what was real - but I think that's part of the experience for people with dementia, isn't it? A small but brilliant cast - as well as the main actors it had Rufus Sewell, Mark Gatiss, Olivia Williams and Imogen Poots.

I'm planning a not-doing-much day tomorrow, with perhaps some gardening.

But now it's time to get ready for bed.

 Inevitably, the husband came down with my cold but it seems to be a particularly mild strain, so that's a good thing.

I finished work at 2pm yesterday and did a bit of shopping, mostly related to Christmas dinner.  Then I came home and got changed ready for our evening out.  The daughter rang saying her taxi was delayed but she did offer to book us one from our house to the restaurant.  The great thing about taxi-booking apps is that you can see where the taxi is.  Ours spent about ten minutes circling around behind our house but never quite making it to us.  Rather like me navigating the Poor Quarter of the Ferai city the first time I played Primal :D  Anyway, he did eventually reach us and we got to the restaurant with about 5 minutes to spare.

The food was very nice and the waitress was attentive without being obtrusive or neglectful.  The only real 'problem' was the noise level.  I had to speak up to hear myself but didn't feel I was speaking particularly loudly.  The family members on the opposite side of the table, however, said I was shouting.  I blame the restaurant's acoustics.  Yes, that's it, definitely!

The place we went to has screens upstairs where they show football matches and the son and husband were hoping to go up there to watch Liverpool's game.  However, everything took a bit longer than anticipated (the place was heaving and there were a few large parties) so they didn't make it.  The cheer and stamping that happened when Liverpool scored was enough to tell us what was going on, though!  Of course, it turned out to be a classic Liverpool performance.  From 2-0 up (AWAY!), they scraped a 3-3 draw from the majority of the possession and chances; they just went to sleep at the back for 5 minutes in the second half.  Absolutely typical.

Anyway, my mother had a lovely evening and liked all our presents.  She even showed a decent amount of appreciation for my scarf, so it was worth all the hours it took to make!  Everyone came back to ours - mum and step-dad for a 'proper' cup of coffee because my mum's 'amaretto liqueur' coffee in the restaurant wasn't as good as it sounded; daughter to wait for her young man (who we are still to meet); grandson to begin his 5 day stay.

Another 'fun' thing was the shopping delivery.  The husband and I finished the list off on Wednesday night but, stupidly, I decided to put off booking the delivery until Thursday.  Part of my brain was telling me Christmas was miles off and the other half was looking forward to finishing work on Friday.  Anyway, the part that thought I had AGES was in the ascendancy on Wednesday and most of Thursday.  I finally realised I still needed to book a slot just before I left work on Thursday, by which point all of Saturday and Sunday was booked, and all of Friday up to 6pm.  I considered the 9-10pm slot but didn't want to have to rush home from the restaurant (even though I was sure we would be well home by 9pm, but in the end it was nearly 9pm when we got in).  So I booked the 10-11pm slot, expecting them to turn up about 10.55pm.  But it was actually about 9.45pm when the knock came.

So, we have a house even fuller of food than it is normally, and the grandson and his XBox.  Daughter and dog arrive Sunday.  Fun and festivities on Monday.  Mum and step-dad and their guest on Tuesday.  Some time Tuesday afternoon they will all be gone and I can finally feel like my break has begun!  Thankfully, I've booked the first week in January as leave, so that will feel like my 'proper' holiday.

Well, that's life for now.  If I don't make it back here before Monday, have a merry and safe Christmas!