Christmas photos! - by Rachel

We've been back on board for 2 weeks now since our Courtesy-of-British-Airways-Christmas-trip-to-the-UK so I wanted to share some photos. We had a lovely time in England with family, lots of muddy walks in the beautiful countryside with wellington boots and dogs, and plenty of great food.  
For 5 days over Christmas, my brother and sister-in-law had 11 humans and 2 dogs at their house: our family, their family and my parents.  They were amazing hosts and we had a great time together:

Christmas morning!

Notice Priya's beautiful table decorations

Cousins!

Elsa was posing as Mother Mary meek and mild, so we may have put a nappy/diaper on Perry after this shot so that he could be baby Jesus...

After Christmas my parents paid for an AirBnB house for 3 nights for the 5 of us, deep in rural Dorset, which was really lovely and relaxing.  It was a tiny cottage with a wood fire, so we were very cozy: 

We went for some sunny walks with gorgeous views

and stops at the local pub with a log fire...

...and an ancient skittle alley!

This was followed by a night in London with Great Aunt Gill and Henry,

who took us to a Peter And The Wolf concert at St Martin in the Fields at Trafalgar Square on New Year's Eve, which was also Daniel's birthday!  I can't believe we have a 12-year old! 

Henry died very unexpectedly the following day, and we feel so honoured to have been able to share one of his last couple of days.  He was the quintessential gentleman who could tell great stories, and we will miss him. 

After this we spent 5 days at my parents' house in Sussex, which I'm afraid we have no photo evidence of, as Kevin caught a really nasty flu virus as soon as we got there.  It was lovely to spend time with my parents but difficult with Kevin being sick.  Unfortunately my Dad also caught it, which hit him really hard and he is still in the process of recovering.  

The rest of us also caught it on our way back to the ship (poor Daniel was feeling awful on the plane!) but we are all mostly recovered now and back to our usual routine.  With many crew having left just prior to Christmas and lots of new crew on board who arrived just after, there are lots of new people for us to meet and try to remember the names of!

In other news, Ashani lost both of her top front teeth in the last 2 days!  I was hoping for a shot of the cute gappy grin look, but the best we can do today is this slightly disturbing spin-off:

Thank you for your prayers and support!  We will continue to serve the people of Benin until June when the ship will sail to the Canary Islands for shipyard.

love, 

the Yangas family