Saying my goodbyes.

2010 has seen many changes in my life, I have been to many places and made lots of new friends, I even married one of them! Last night I went to dinner at Curly's house and was teased rather a lot, I even managed to get my head turned right around! Thank goodness Curly was there to rescue me, I hadn't seen her in ages so it was lovely to catch up on all her news. She told me she had been very poorly with Swine flu, how weird is that a lamb getting Pig flu. She is much better now thank goodness. In fact I persuaded her to come home with me for a while and she was ready with her bag packed in no time, especially when I told Sid was really missing her.


You can see from the photo below that some of us have got together for one last photo shoot of the year.
Pip, Candy and I are especially sad to be saying good bye to you all at the end of my year of blogging. However, we are now looking forward to spending some time together away from the prying lens of Shirley's camera. Who knows what the future has in store for us, perhaps one day I will rich and famous but until then I am one very lucky Chimp who has had an incredible year.

So goodbye my friends and thank you for taking the time to come along here and share my year with me.

Wishing you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Enjoying my presents.

Christmas was fun for me this year. It was our very first Christmas as a family and it was made even more special when Abbie and Sid arrived especially as Sid was carrying a load of presents for us. I felt a bit guilty as we had only got him a gift voucher to visit Monkey world!I got a gorgeous new Christmas top.
Pip received a stunning hat and matching scarf. Abbie knitted the scarf apparently!
Candy got very excited as she had two presents. You can see her here wearing the snuggly warm jumper that Santa brought her in her stocking.
Sid had given her a beautiful necklace and guitar, which she has not stop playing since Christmas day. I am not sure if I am pleased about that but hopefully she will get fed up eventually and find something quieter to do!
Then Dad popped in just in time for a family photo.
With Christmas over we thought that was the last of the presents but the postman had other ideas. As you know from my last post here on my blog we have had lots of snow, therfore the postman had not made any deliveries in ages so it was a lovely surprise to get a parcel yesterday. It was from Shirley's lovely friend Irene. We all got very excited when we unwrapped it!
When we opened it we were amazed, inside the wonderful suitcase was a pair of fairy shoes that Irene had made and some fairy dust.

I am going to see just what the fairy dust does when I sprinkle it about but I need to do that when Shirley isn't looking.

I will be back tomorrow because it will be the end of my year long blog and I will be saying goodbye to you all.

Getting ready for Christmas.

I have been really busy for the last week, going to Sandie's Christmas party was fun. Sandie had been on holiday to Mexico and she brought me back a new friend and a sombrero. My new mate is called Pedro and plays great tunes on his Maracas.Then on Sunday I went to the final Funcrop of the year and Chris gave me a rather yummy Chocolate Santa.
The real big surprise was when we went for afternoon tea at the Randolph hotel. Shirley had been given a gift voucher for her birthday from her friends Sue and Martin,way back in June to have afternoon tea for 2. However, she snuck me in too. Apparently Inspector Morse often use to pop into the Randolph hotel and have a cuppa!
THEN IT WAS BACK TO BEING STUCK IN THE SNOW AGAIN!!!!!
After measuring just how deep the snow was in the garden, Shirley thought it would be good to go for a little walk around.
Pip and I did not think it was such a good idea

Candy certainly wasn't happy.
At least we were able to dry out in the warm.
On Monday Abbie came around to play, we spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Abbie was on a secret mission with a surprise present.
I got to lick out the bowl.
Then we baked some Christmas biscuits.
The really BIG surprise was the animated video that Abbie made for me, she went to a workshop at the weekend and put together and shot the whole video. All I can say is Wallace and Grommit look out!




As you can see have been busy one way and another and with a bit of luck I am going to stay indoors until Christmas. Especially as Colin and Shirley have so much snow on their drive they can't get the car out of the garage!!

Have a HAPPY CHRISTMAS everyone.

X

Thawing out!

Little did I know when I last posted here on my blog that I would be going on holiday so soon. When Shirley told me that I should pack my holiday clothes, I started to pack my shorts and T shirts. After the lovely holiday I had with Monkey in the summer I was so excited about seeing the sunshine again. However, she told me I would need to pack warm clothes instead as we were going to Germany and visit the Christmas markets. This sounded very exciting but a bit chilly to me! Pip decided that after her exciting trip to Paris, she needed to rest and recover and spend some quality time with Candy, so I was off on another adventure on my own.
You can see from the first photo that whilst travelling on the trains I saw a lot of snow.

We arrived in Wurzburg in time for a late supper and ready for bed. When I woke up in the morning and opened our hotel room door I was in for a big surprise two Chocolate Santas had been left outside. Apparently we had arrived on 5^th December which was many children put a boot called Nikolaus-Stiefel (Nikolaus boot) outside their front door. St. Nicholas fills the boot with gifts and sweets overnight, and at the same time checks up on the children to see if they were good, polite and helpful the last year. So I think I must have been very good to get these Chocolate Santas. I did not hear St Nicolas during in the night but I did see him around quite often over the next few days.

On our first day we travelled to Nuremburg, it is has Germany's largest Christmas market. It was really big and it snowed all day so I got rather cold and wet, especially as Shirley insisted on sitting me in some very chilly places!

These horses looked even colder than I felt.

I know Shirley takes photos of some funny things some times but this chap from the local TV station seemed to be filming a packet of biscuits, how weird is that?

The next day we did not have to catch a train, we were able to walk into the Christmas market in Wurzburg. Of course Shirley managed to find a really chilly spot for my photoshoot.

I had a touch of hat envy here, I wish I had a hat like this to keep my ears warm.

Then I spotted this little group of sheep, I couldn’t resist buying one for Curly as a Christmas surprise (I hope she is not reading this).

Well at least this wall did not have any snow on it!

To end the day Colin and Shirley HAD to have some Gluhwein, mind you they had a couple during the day too. ‘Just to keep warm,’ they told me.

On our final day we visited Rotenburg and where there was a bus yet another pile of snow to sit on!

We did make a lovely visit to a toy museum and saw lots of amazing toys and of course ended the visit with a mug of Gluhwein.

Looking out the window on the morning of our return home we saw that it had snowed again, which meant lots of snowy photos were taken on our journey home.

I did seem to spend a lot of time on the journey home sitting on train station platforms waiting for trains to turn up. Snow on the line is not just a British rail excuse for delayed trains apparently.

I am just about thawed out now, which is a good job as I have lots of things to get sorted for Christmas.