It`s Christmas!

This year seems to have passed in a flash and now its almost Christmas, one of my favourite times of the year! Christmas actually started at Cruise.co.uk last week with our annual Christmas Conference which, this year, was a 3 nights cruise to Bruges on Fred Olsen Balmoral, one of my favourite ships.

Conference is always quite hard work but we do have lots of fun as well and this year was no exception. The cruise had  a 70`s theme and on the first evening we all donned our fancy dress, had a lovely meal and then headed of to the theatre to listen to a really good ELO Tribute Band. Next day was Christmas Jumper day, compulsory for all and finally, on the last morning we headed off into the lovely city of Bruges to buy chocolate – well you can`t go to Belgium and not buy chocolate now can you!

Balmoral is a lovely ship, very friendly and I do think it is the atmosphere onboard and the staff that makes Fred Olsen such a popular cruise line. The ship was beautifully decorated throughout giving us a really good start to the festive season.

Friday last week was the day of our annual girls from the village  Christmas Lunch at  the Butchers Arms in Priors Hardwick. a lovely traditional English restaurant where we always have good food an great service.

Christmas Day lunch will be at friends , then Boxing Day will be at home with 10 guests and 5 dogs ! Talk about a houseful or what, and they are not small dogs either, our lovely Rowan, 2 English Pointers called Hugo and Harry, Lexi a little spaniel and Bentley- Vernon who is a French Bulldog. It will be a slightly unusual late lunch as our friend Graham has requested Beef Bourguignon and he always gets his way!

So to New Year – and a 4 nights cruise on P&O Ventura to, yes you guessed it, Bruges and Amsterdam so I guess more chocolate will be needed!

I will be back in the office at Cruise.co.uk on Sunday 3rd January so until then Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone.