First update of 2026 - What I did last month

So yet again I feel like I've fallen behind with updates and yet, I don't really know what I'm doing with them - I'm using my camera roll to remind myself what I've already posted about,  where I'm up to. 

But then using this to photodump and not having anything to say about the photos isn't exactly a good use of a blog. 

I've just got the blogger app, thinking that having it as a separate thing in my rotation of apps will make it easier to update (rather than having it open on one of 100+ tabs on my browser).

Maybe that will work but so far the app seems harder to use than the website. 

Anyway,  things of note for a quick-ish roundup (or at least summarising half of December as quickly as I can).

I went on a fancy train! It was very, very fancy and had fancy food. 

The train in question was the Northern Belle which does various fancy trips of it's train on a 'heritage diesel' engine (and I believe they even bring the steam engine out for extra special trips).

My mam thought we were going up to Scotland. We were not. 

Trio of salmon with big black prawn cracker?

The food was amazing, the salmon pictured above being my favourite (and the cheese of course).

The cracker prizes were appropriately upmarket. The jokes were traditionally awful 😄

Potage

Turkey dinner - you can't really fancy this up much but the creamed sprouts with pancetta were pretty nice. 

You can't really blame a train for the weather, but we didn't really get any great views. Then again I'm very used to seeing the sea so maybe that would have been exciting for other people on a clear day. But my mam had us all expecting hills and glens 😄

Of course the early nights don't help either

The staff were all brilliant, they've clearly got everything timed so everything runs smoothly. There were a couple of musicians going up and down the carriages playing Christmas tunes between courses, and later on a magician who entertained us with his balls. 

Is this good omens? Too bad, it is now

Altogether a great day out, although I'm not sure I'd have gone if i was paying (special circumstances in play here).

They even had a brochure lot souvenirs, which I resisted. 

 

Mocktail and truffles

CHEESE

Reflections

This was the TOILET FLOOR

so yeah. Got back from this feeling utterly spoiled and very fancy (but also very tired) and did a bit of vanity before changing into my fluffy pj's. 

So that was 18th December. 

On the 22nd I went to see Santa (with a friend and kids so not that weird.

We actually saw two Santa's,  one was live person and one was... this

Also played on the beach and had a very nice hot chocolate (not Terry's, mine etc)

After that I was feeling quite thoroughly christmassy and found the energy to do some decorations. 

So I will leave you with a bunch of pictures of pre-christmas, and be back soon (hopefully)with another update of the day itself and beyond. 

Little reminder that if you want to see the many, many pictures I take, I post on pixelfed (https://pixelfed.social/JellyFerret) and instagram (@ferretjelly). 

If you want to know whenever I update this blog, send me a PM on whatever platform and let me know your email.  I think I'm going to have to go manual and remember to email you.