When I was living in Leicester and my cousin Krissie was living in London, for fun, I started writing her name as Xie. I used the X the same way it is used for the “Chris” syllable, as found in the spelling Xmas.*  It is her Rock-Girl Superstar name, which fits her perfectly, because to me she is a superstar.

Xie is as optimistic and generous as her mum and has an amazing sense of humour. She loves dogs, walking, fun and being mischievous…and cigarettes. Xie adores cigarettes. (I occasionally share one or two with her, just to stop her feeling like a pariah, you understand.) She is also a fabulous mother to her 9-year-old son, Ryan, who is the baby in the pics, and a supportive and loving wife to her hubby, Tony, also pictured.

To spend time with Xie is to be entertained, to laugh and be uplifted. She is one of my most favourite people in the world, but of course from what I have just written, you didn’t already know that!

The only down side in this cousinly love affair is, that apart from a blissful 2 years in the UK, we have never lived in the same country. Even then, when we finally managed to be on the same island, we were not in the same region. We made as much time as possible to see each other, always including her sister Rachel, when we could, and had some fine adventures exploring the countryside around Leicester and cool shops and cafés in London.

These pics were taken over a relatively short period, mostly in the UK, and are in chronological order.

* As I don’t know anyone who pronounces the “t” in “Chris’mas”.

NB For those of you with an etymological bent, the spelling Xmas should be pronounced the same way you’d say Christmas. The X comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Χριστός, translated as “Christ“. Xp was also a commonly used form to shorten the manual labour of producing hand written manuscripts. Wikipedia has a great article on the 1000 year-long history of this abbreviation.