This is the first Christmas Day that we were not awoken before dawn to open presents.
By the time Flynn actually stirred it was nearly 9 and even then he asked for a half hour to ‘wake up’ first. He is growing up.
We were all thrilled with our generous and thoughtful Christmas hauls when we finally opened them.
I snuck out to make breakfast in the communal kitchen: waffles and cinnamon French toast sticks in the oven and was surprised to see the Pirate Queen Laura come in to the kitchen ready to make pancakes.
She told me that folk aren’t usually allowed to use the oven in the morning due to pancake -making busyness but as it was Christmas Day that was ok. I was just surprised someone would be on pancake duty on Christmas Day! Pirate Haus is renowned for its free ‘all-you-can-eat’ pancake breakfast. A young Sussie guy actually holds the record for the most pancakes devoured in a single sitting: 21!
The Pirate Queen made me a Christmas tree blueberry pancake. Yummm! It complimented my Key lime pie and pumpkin-spice flavoured coffee just perfectly
The Pirate Queen had developed a bad case of hiccups as we were chatting. I told her about how Kara has actually banned me from frightening the hiccups out of her because I am so good at it, and about 10 minutes later the Pirate Queen came over and said quietly, ‘I think I may need you to frighten me because my hiccups aren’t stopping.’
I wanted to pop out for some more sightseeing and as I stepped out of our Captain’s Quarters door, I saw the Pirate Queen cleaning. I jumped out at her and did a big ‘roawaar!’
She jumped and looked so shocked! Like she didn’t know who I was.
‘Did it work?’ I asked.
‘Oh yes, well I actually stopped hiccuping a couple minutes back,’ she said.
‘Oh dear, I hope I haven’t frightened the hiccups back into you,’ I groaned as I left.
Later, I tried to fry our late Christmas lunch steaks surreptitiously as I get the impression that most of the volunteers here are either vegetarian or vegan. But of course the whole kitchen smoked up and eeked into the hallway and I had to have all the fans over the stove going- so it was like a big beacon declaring our carnivorousness
Kara had not seen any of St Augustine’s wonders yet, so she and I spent some time taking in the sights before coming back to grab the whole family and walk to Ripley’s Believe It or Not. That place really is a reminder of what an amazing world we live in and how strange and wonderfully unique the human race is.
I left the family at the gift shop to race back and drink in the final vestiges of a St Augustine
We followed up our dinner of more waffles with Flynn’s Christmas game Stupid Deaths and also took some turns versing each other in the oversized connect four game in the common room
A really lovely Christmas day with the family.
Dory the Explorer 