Cosy working Christmas

This year was my first time working Christmas Day. I’ve worked on Boxing Day before, which was unenjoyable (new rotation + post Christmas grumps). Christmas Day this year however on the gynaecology ward was warming, relaxed and festive. As you can expect, not many people present to hospital on Christmas Day and many patients are discharged prior, leading me to have an uneventful shift. There were many festive headbands, cheerful nurses and midwives, Christmas films, and more food than any of us could ever eat. I took this opportunity to clean out our handover room too, filling an entire bin with junk that we don’t use - let’s seen how long this tidiness lasts for. 

I drove home late on Christmas Day from Cwmbran and arrived before 10pm to dad’s in Exeter. There we spent a few days enjoying our traditional Christmas of scrummy food, a Knives Out film, jigsaws and much chilling. My lovely family postponed their own Christmas Days so we could celebrate it together on Boxing Day - thank you!!

Mum and I rounded off the year completing various craft kits we found in the house, and I spent a productive hour (or 2!) organising my embroidery thread. I really should do before and after shots!

Before:

After:

I also saw the lovely Abbie and Georgie for an afternoon of games and more food. 

We (Cait + dad + I) headed up to Bristol on the 30th for a scrummy dinner visit to John and Jacqueline - driving separately, I was left alone! (Cait wanted the driving practice in dad’s car). I picked up Mark from Parkway to join us - gorgeous to see him again after a week. 

Back to Cardiff that evening ready for my next shift on the 31st - it never ends!

Christmas activities

Last week Mark & I went to see the BBC Wales National Orchestra’s Christmas celebrations concert in the Welsh Millenium Centre. We often mean to get to the Millennium Centre (it’s so close!) but either can’t find the time or there’s nothing we want to see on. I did see this concert a little while back and bought us tickets, so we can now say that we’ve been. 

It was a lovely evening, very Christmassy and warming. The orchestra was fantastic, with some excellent singers too. I spent most of the evening watching percussion and whispering to Mark about what I used to do there. We particularly enjoyed it when after the interval all of the musicians came back into the hall wearing Christmassy gear - including several turkeys, a snowman, parsnip, carrot, and potato. 

We also didn’t realise that the bar upstairs looked out through the giant letters seen from the outside of the Millennium Centre, so that was cool too. 

This weekend we went to London for the yearly Cait + dad + Riona +/- Mark trip. We rocked up just after midday to hear shocking words from Caitlin Adams’ lips: “I’ve not thought about lunch!”. Unheard of. 

After recovering from that abnormality and Cait kindly whipping something up for us, we tubed into London to do our classic stops: London Transport Museum gift shop, Covent Garden (annual photo only, avoid the crowds), Stanfords. We also added on Cotswold Outdoor for Cait to buy some new walking boots - thrilling.

Dinner was at the lovely Tangra, which I recommend if you like Mowgli’s food and vibes - very similar and very yummy. We did order too much food and I was defeated pretty early on - Mark trooped on for a while but it was dad who saved us in the end (i.e. he ate the most, thank you dad). 

The theatre show this year was the incomparable Les Misérables - our second time seeing it live and Mark’s first. It was excellent, powerful, and yes dad did cry. 

Following this we continued our tradition and found the Carnaby Street lights in Soho. They were disappointing this year. Or, in my exact words: “This is shit.”. Excuse my language. Not quite up to scratch of previous years (space, the sea). 

No ice skating for us this year - is Rog finally getting old? (his fortnight long cycle trip this summer suggests otherwise). On Sunday morning Cait found a gem for brunch with the cafe bar at Omnibus Theatre in Clapham. Ginormous cinnamon buns & cheap toasties. And - a finished Times crossword! Those who know Cait know that she carries around a Times crossword book with the same importance as her phone. We rarely finish them, but this time we managed it (and only looked up someeeee of the answers…).

That afternoon dad & I defeated Mark & Cait at Codenames (ha!), before Mark & I headed back to Cardiff. Cait and dad headed to Exeter that evening, with Caitlin promising that she would suitably ruin dad’s Christmas tree (ruin = cover it in homemade tat decorations). 

The current bland tree - where are the baubles dad?

The chaos I expect (mine). 

Stockholm 🇸🇪

This week we visited Sweden for the first time, heading to its capital city Stockholm for a short break. 

Tuesday, 9th December 2025

We headed to London for my usual free airbnb lovely sister’s flat. We had a gorgeous few hours catching up and enjoying a scrummy curry before we had a mildly early night before our flight the next day.

Wednesday, 10th December 2025

Happy birthday to dad! 

We had a luxurious start to the morning with no early start (at least for me, Cait was moaning about her 06:30 wake up call) and an easy tube trip to Heathrow. It was a bit more expensive for the later start and BA, but well worth it. Our travel was without problems, including an on time (!) bus service to Stockholm centre to find our hotel. We had a quick walk around the area before we got a veggie hotdog from 7-Eleven - a minor recurring theme of this holiday for Mark. 

This is an octopus donated to us by Caitlin, who was aghast when she heard we had no cuddly friends coming with us this holiday. I meant to take photos with him/her around Stockholm, but then it was raining and I was lazy.

Thursday, 11th December 2025

We started off the morning with an excellent breakfast at the hotel - obviously a waffle with caramel sauce and sprinkles. Never too old for sprinkles. We then made our way over to the Gamla Stan island - we were staying at Downtown Camper nearby - to see the Old Town. 

Om nom nom nom nom.

We browsed a cute Christmas market before visiting the Nobel Prize Museum, which wasn’t quite as good as we hoped it to be. It was mainly objects donated to the museum from previous winners that had little significance to the actual awards or Alfred Nobel. For example, a previous winner’s ski gear was donated - a known hobby of his but not actually related to his award. We would have liked to see a few good sections on significant Nobel Prize awards - for example: black holes, ending apartheid, penicillin, DNA, Red Cross, MKJ, quantum mechanics - to name a few. It would have also been interesting to know a bit more about the background of the prize and about Alfred Nobel. It was cool though to see that the recent Nobel winners (awarded just the day before we visited) had already signed their chairs - a tradition in the Nobel Bistro cafe.

I did get some octopus photos here. 

As usual we found a bookshop for me - sci fi and fantasy! My perfect bookshop, I could have browsed for hours. Instead, I got what I visited for - some guinea pig items from a Swedish artist I admire from afar. Gamla Stan is very pretty, with old 17th and 18th century colourful buildings. We enjoyed our (slightly damp) walks around there and the river. We even glimpsed the end of the changing of the guard at The Royal Palace. 

Cathedral & Royal Palace 

That evening we headed back out to see the Nobel Week Lights, which were illuminations dotted around nearby to celebrate Nobel Week. Some were inspired, like the light box representing gravitational waves, whereas others were just fun to bop around. The rain steadily picked up until we returning to our hotel looking rather damp. 

    

We dried off before heading out for dinner at Moyagi just around the corner from our hotel. 

Friday, 12th December 2025

On Friday we started with visiting the Avicii Experience. Avicii was & still is one of Mark’s favourite music artists, and it was poignant to see the impact he had made with his life. It was pleasantly empty and interactive so a good visit. 

We then again wandered to Gamla Stan, this time for souvenir shopping. Oh, the dilemma of choosing the right magnet and Christmas decoration. We found a cafe for Fika which was cosy but with humorously   disinterested servers!

Were these decorations an acceptable choice?

Most of the rest of the day was spent staying inside and dry, enjoying our window seat and making progress with our books (I finished 2 this trip, yay!). We went out for dinner to Verte, a Swedish vegan restaurant, but the experience was somewhat dampened by being sat essentially in the corridor next to the toilets. That evening we also tried out the hotel’s rooftop bar, which had fab views - but at £17 per drink it was definitely a one time treat! Expensive food was a theme of our trip, which we knew going into it but was a little irksome nonetheless. And then mum is blogging about her £5 dinner for 2! 😉

Our window seat!

I liked these little letter boxes. 

Saturday, 13th December 2025

Happy 9 years to me & Mark!

We wondered outside our known zone and headed to Söderman island, a bigger island to the south, to find a viewpoint. Quite a misty day, but lovely views still! I particularly liked their local Christmas markets, selling trees and food next to open fires. We’d considered heading to the ABBA Museum, but weren’t so keen on it that we fancied £20 each - although I will get Mark to watch Mamma Mia 2 soon. 

We rounded off our Swedish trip by going to Ikea (of course) for some delicious (and cheap!) plant based meatballs. We ate them in bed as we watched Home Alone 2 - bliss. 

Sunday, 14th December 2025

Back to the UK today after a wonderful 5 days in Sweden. We would definitely recommend it!