Tag Archives: Christmas

Too Much Time to Think

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Snowy Detail

I have had plenty of time to let my mind freewheel over Christmas and my thoughts, when not connected to food, TV or being a gracious host, have turned to founding a new religion.

It’s quite clear that a lot of the old ones have not quite lived up to their initial promise, and the newest religion in the UK, which appears to be Jedi, has been lifted from a film franchise and probably has copyright issues. It has also been turned down for charitable status in the UK.

I’m not quite sure what the main thrust of our doctrine will be. I grew up in a world where Protestants and Catholics were killing each other and have “progressed” to a world where Jews, Muslims and Christians are still fighting.  It’s not good and we really should stop.

So, Rule Number One – stop killing people. Or if you want it slightly more Biblical – thou shalt not blow up they neighbour’s house. Particularly if it’s in a different country.

Robin at Clumber, Nottinghamshire

There will probably be more as time goes on, but if we get that one right we won’t be doing too badly. It will involve a bit of rewriting, taking all the best bits from other religions, probably lighten up on the oxen coveting, but come down heavily of reality TV. We can do without it.

My church, my rules.

Then there is the question of prayer wheels. I think we should have them. I also think they should be turned by hamsters. Obviously, if we attend any multi-faith events we will have to watch out for Americans with snakes, but apart from that it should be no problem, and the Youth Wing will love them.

Our main Festival will be on a weekend in summer, making it easier to shop and cutting down on the necessity to stock up. If there’s no Christmas rush and no shutting of shops., you can just nip out and  buy anything you have forgotten.

Pom-pom Christmas Wreath

 

 

 

End of the Egg Crisis

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Christmas Stamps

Christmas Stamps

The Egg Crisis has passed. After giving it some thought I tried again. We’d put six in the fridge still in their shells and five of them ended up being fit to use. They are currently in the fridge pickling away, along with some others that I boiled and shelled with no problem. I had intended doing half with chilli and half with plain vinegar, but I put the crushed chillies in at the beginning and, as usual, the first lot of vinegar lasted for two jars. Note to self – next time do the plain ones first then add crushed chilli. Unless I decide chilli is the way to go. I’m quite keen on adding crushed chillis to pickled onions as it does liven them up – not to sure about pickled eggs but will find out soon.

Another note to self – when boiling chilli flakes in vinegar don’t breathe the steam. It took about half an hour for me to stop coughing. and an hour before my eyes stopped watering.  The annoying thing is that I know better – I just forgot.

Anyway, the good news is that our stock of hard-boiled eggs is down to manageable levels. A vegetarian kedgeree and some egg sandwiches should see them off by Christmas.

Christmas Chutney

Julia went shopping with my sister yesterday, picking up the food orders from M&S – just a few vegetarian bits and a cheeseboard. We have far too much cheese. However, it will keep for New Year. I’m having vegetarian roast for Christmas Dinner, Julia and Number One Son will have turkey. Number One Son’s Partner, who will become Number One Daughter in Law next spring (I really could do with some shorter aliases for people) will have a choice. I hope she has the veggie option so there will be plenty of turkey left for sandwiches as I intend having turkey sandwiches several times over the holidays.

The week between Christmas and New Year is my favourite week of the year – the week where I have turkey sandwiches most days and can be idle without feeling guilty. OK, there’s a bit of cooking and washing up to do but not much else. And yes, I can actually idle most of my year away without feeling guilty, as Julia has just pointed out. – I’m lucky that way. I lack the gene which makes Julia jump up and down doing things when she should be relaxing. However, in this particular week it’s even easier to feel relaxed about idling.

I just lostthe entire post but managed to get a lot of it back. I still have about 350 words missing but will see if |I can get them back later. Julia is back from the cafe, the kettle is on and Christmas is about to start.

Have a good one. I will try to pop back later and find the rest of the words.

Pom-pom Christmas Wreath

A Day of Eggs and Chores

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A leaf in Arnott Hill park

This morning I rose shortly before 7am and started my day. I do not have a great deal to do today, but it feels virtuous to start with “This morning I rose shortly before 7qm . . .”

It was 6.48, so it wasn’t that long before. This may be the opening line I need for my memoirs. Getting up before 7.00 and blogging makes me look reasonably industrious without necessarily promising too much. This is about right, I am industrious in patches, and have achieved very little. That’s probably why I never actually get beyond the stage of thinking “today I will write my memoirs”. You really need something to write about and a memoir from someone who has done less with his life than most of his readers is about as much use as a novel where nothing happens.

The view from Tebay Services

I wonder if you can make a book out of blog posts – The Collected Blog Posts of a Nobody. It would be a true title, but runs into the same old problem. The fact that I woke up, wrote, made coffee for my wife, who spent yesterday morning wood turning, and had high fibre cereal for breakfast is interesting only to me, and even then, I felt my interest waning towards the end. Julia enjoyed the wood turning. We now have a small Christmas tree in oak and something that could be the end of a pull cord, if we drill a hole for it. It’s not bad for a first lesson.

We had soup for lunch. She is, in case I haven’t mentioned it, half pack rat, and had been storing half-used vegetables at the back of the fridge. This is an area where we differ. I tend to use all the vegetable, and if I don’t, I leave it at the front so it doesn’t get old and wrinkly. I have just checked up pack rat in Wiki to make that link. She wants to know what I am laughing at.

They are particularly fond of shiny objects. A peculiar characteristic is that if they find something they want, they will drop what they are currently carrying—for example, a piece of cactus—and “trade” it for the new item. 

And that, dear reader, explains the decor of our home.

Sunlit oak leaves at Clumber

After breakfast, we tidied kitchen cupboards to check for duplication and find out what we needed to order for Christmas. We don’t need to order stuffing. I ordered four cheap packets last week as we seemed to have run out whilst making turkey sandwiches last week. At least half the fun of eating turkey sandwiches is in the trimmings, rather than the turkey. I could order a better quality turkey but the cost of a good one always makes me think I should be living in it rather than eating it. I see I can get a free range bronze turkey from Marks for £150. In my youth I used to pay less than that for cars.

After that I made two jars of pickled eggs, then heated up yesterday’s soup and made egg sandwiches to accompany it. The eggs I use are a bit larger than the average pickled egg and I can only get five eggs into a jar. That meant I had several more eggs left over than I planned. Guess what tomorrow’s sandwiches are going to be.

We watched a bit of TV as we ate then Julia started work again and I watched more TV. Then I washed up the mess I had made before remembering I had a blog post to finish.

Rufford Abbey Lake

 

Connected!

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Robin

Yes, the day finally arrived and the worries dispersed. We are now connected to the internet, it seems to be running well and I can start blogging again.

The downside is that Julia is now abusing the connection to play Christmas music. It’s currently The Pretenders with 2,000 Miles, so it could be worse. It could, for instance, be . . . I spoke too soon. It’s just changed to It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas. There are still five days to go, surely I don’t need to switch to unremitting jollity just yet.

Well, a lot has happened in the last few days. We are now spending more time here than we do in Nottingham and, psychologically, this is beginning to feel like home. Talking of which, I’m going to leave my office now and walk through to the kitchen for coffee and biscuits without wearing a coat. It’s a bit different to the old system, where I would already be wearing my coat as I typed on the dining room table at this time of year.

Robin at Budby Flash

I say “office”. It’s the smallest bedroom. If I stretch out my arms my fingertips touch the walls, but after 35 years of planning an office/writing room it feels like luxury.  It’s not quite organised yet, but that’s going to take time.  We didn’t, for instance, have room to fit the printer into the car on the last trip, so I can write, but I can’t print. When we do return, we want to bring more paintings down, so it’s likely we still won’t have room for the printer on that trip either.  We did make room for a vegetable strainer and hand blender this time.

Talking of kitchen appliances, I’ve just been reading the microwave instruction book again. It’s a remarkable bit of work. It is crammed with detail and instructions, but after reading it I am left none the wiser about how to use it or what I can do with it. After spending hours selecting the one with the most features, and daydreaming about my adventures with microwaves, I’m left with the feeling that I will mostly be cooking soup, potatoes and pies with soggy crusts. I could have bought something considerably cheaper if I’d been more realistic in my assessment of my skills.

Robin

Talking of which, we finally, after several misadventures, have a second freezer. The one in the kitchen is a bit small and we have more or less filled it after buying Christmas snacks and fish fingers, and freezing three lots of soup. That’s why I have been reading the microwave manual again. I swear it’s easier to fly to the moon than it is to defrost a block of soup for lunch. Eventually, I suppose, I will get used to it.

Anyway, can’t linger, as I have things to write for the Numismatic Society of Nottinghamshire. If you could have a quick look and press some “Like” buttons it would be appreciated. I’ve just had one published about the 1914 bombardment of Scarborough, though if you wait till next time there’s a write up about the Duke of Clarence and why he wasn’t (as has been claimed in the past) Jack the Ripper. Oh yes, there’s a lot of history in medallions.

Pictures represent Christmas jollity.

Robin at Rufford Abbey

 

Christmas Stamps

In the Post

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The day started with two emails from potential customers asking if items ordered today would be delivered by Christmas. I don’t know. I can, as I said, get them in the post today, but the rest is down to Royal Mail. They are generally very good, but if my life depended on them I’d be worried. They can, as recent events have shown, be erratic, and not very good at addressing complaints.

Last posting date for 2nd Class Mail is Monday 18th December, so in theory anything posted up until Monday will be delivered for Christmas. In most cases this will work, sometimes it doesn’t, and I don’t want an argument with a customer about whether I said they could have a parcel before Christmas. I don’t want to be the man who broke Christmas.

One of them ordered. The other didn’t. I hope it goes well. However, both items have been on eBay for months and there is no reason they could not hve ordered last week if time was important. I am, of course, too tactful to say this.

I got my Christmas cards in the post today, so I’m hoping they will be there before Christmas.

Stamps, stamps, stamps…

We also had a series of emails from a foreign gent, the penultimate one being “Why you not answer?” Well, I don’t know about you, but I pack up at the end of the day and do not spend the time between 7pm and 7am sending endless replies to a man who is making low offers on things. I merely said that we are happy to answer but he won’t get one after we close. As for his offers, when the owner is back tomorrow we will sort out a price.

That was about it. I am now home and have done my post for the day.

We had a package this morning. DHL was supposed to let us know when it was arriving. It did so at 07.14 this morning. I didn’t get the message as it was an email and I don’t do emails on the phone. At 07.28 there was a knock on the door, a relieved looking delivery driver.

“I’m glad you’re up,” he said, “I’ve been waking people up this morning.”

It’s an ever-present risk, I suppose, when you deliver at that time of day and only give 14 minutes warning. I’d been expecting it a day in advance so we could make arrangements to be in. I’m not fond of delivery companies.

Edward Lear Stamps (1988)

I Remembered!

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Julia takes Christmas more seriously than I do

I remembered what I couldn’t remember yesterday. I had a text in the morning telling me that they surgery had cancelled my blood test at short notice. This was annoying fo  number of reasons, including that I am already a week late after working Wednesday last week. My appointment had been for 8.20 (which wouldn’t have been my first choice to be honest) and they had no more appointments that day. So, feeling pessimistic, I rang the surgery to reschedule. I was number four in the queue, then three then two, then one . . .

Whoever was in front of me took ages. They must have been asking something very complicated. I stayed at Number One in the queue . . .

. . . and waited . . .

. . . and tried to keep cheerful whilst waiting, and as the tinny music played . . .

. . . and got through.

I was cheerful and polite and came away with an appointment for 11.40 this morning. It seemed they did have another appointment today after all, and at a much more convenient time.

Christmas in a Tin? See above.

As a result, I was able to stay in bed until 9.00 (clutching the new tartan duvet around my ears) and have bacon sandwich before pottering off, yielding blood at the second attempt and returning home.

I hve thoroughly enjoyed my day so far. It’s  little cold, and the screen was still iced up at 11.20 but  apart from that all is good.

I’ve also found my methotrexate tablets. I’ve missed a week and that really makes a difference in winter, but I found some when looking through my bag. At first I thought they were the ones I knew I had lost, but they aren’t, because the box is different. These are not the ones I know I have lost, these must be the ones that puzzled me a few months ago when I ran out unexpectedly. I must have taken them away with me when we went to Norfolk.

A Quercus Christmas

I am going to have to introduce a memory support system where I  use one big box for tablets, keep a diary and, as Derrick suggested, photograph stuff to remind me.

This, in answer to a question I asked earlier in the week, is when I admit I am getting old.

Imperfection is the essence of a handmade Christmas. I refer, of course, to the wreath rather than Julia, who.like Mary Poppins, is practically perfect in every way. I pointed out that she looks very young in this photo. She pointed out that since this picture was taken she has had to put up with me for another eight years.

A Good Start and a Weak Finish

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Pom-pom Christmas Wreath

Another day and another new experience. I ended up standing on the landing at 5 this morning, writing notes that came into my head after I got up during the night. I was back in bed after a trip to the bathroom when I half composed/half dreamed a new poem. Rather than lose it I got up, searched for paper (it would happen on a night when I had no notebook to hand, wouldn’t it?) and scrawled as much as I could remember on the back of an envelope.

Whether it will ever amount to anything I don’t know, but at least it’s there. I forget too much stuff and am determined to capture more of it, even if it does mean getting cold.

Mistletoe from eBay

We are closing in on Christmas and, as yet, I have done very little. The two shopping deliveries are booked, but that is all. I assume that we will be having turkey and all the trimmings but apart from that hve little idea about what we will be doing. It doesn’t really matter what I think because Julia always goes out and comes back with loads of things we don’t need just before the big day.

Meanwhile I can’t access my emails as BT is making changes. It’s all in aid of the “new and improved” service they will be offering. Ho, ho, ho . . .

I’ve been getting more and more annoyed with them ever since we changed our internet supply on the instructions of BT, then found that they were going to be providing me with a worse email system as a consequence. I’ve been with them ever since I went on the internet and don’t want to change as it will be quite complex to unravel some things, but it’s looking more and more like I will have to move.

Something else happened too, but I can’t recall what it was, so I will finish now and go to watch TV.

Holly

Christmas Stamps

Christmas is Coming!

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Julia has been busy today and as I write we have a Christmas cake cooling on a rack. Christmas? Yes, it’s coming soon, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. I’d love to live in eternal summer, particularly since my joints would prefer it, but even if I had to have winter I wouldn’t mind missing Christmas out of the calendar.  It would be a bit of an adjustment for Christians, who would suddenly have a hole in the liturgical year, and retailers would complain, but for the rest of us it wouldn’t be a great problem.

Pom-pom Christmas Wreath

Much of Christmas is about the movement of calories and clutter round the world. To be fair, we all like presents and chocolate, but do we really need them?

It would be much easier to run a business without Christmas (apart from a business that relies on the annual orgy of over-buying), particularly when you look at the yearly tangle of Bank Holidays. I won’t go through it all, because it’s dull and I’m not sure if I remember it all correctly, but the main feature is that if you are running a poultry farm you need staff in every day. Unless it’s turkeys. Turkey farms can be quite quiet over Christmas. If Christmas day falls on a Saturday or a Sunday nobody wants to work and the pay rate is only normal weekend rate. The Bank Holiday, in that case, is on Monday and people are all very happy to work Monday for triple time. I used to hate that.

Robin

So, there we go. Christmas cake is baked and Scrooge is beginning to emerge from his summer hibernation . . .

Lots and Lots of Lovely parcels

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The smell of cooking potato is wafting through the house. It will soon be followed by the scent of sizzling sausages. Tonight’s meal is not going to rate high on the sophistication scale. I briefly toyed with the idea of sausage casserole, but quickly blanked it in favour of wedges and beans. I will add one of the many relishes I currently find myself in possession of, and consider it a meal fit for a King. The new King will probably disagree, as I doubt that his minions are currently engaged in cooking anything as mundane as this.

I returned to work today, to find a list of sales on eBay. There were 25 parcels by the end of the day but all I managed was to pack & post 16 of them and the pack a couple of others ready for tomorrow. It works out at three parcels an hour, which is not impressive, though I did have to disinter some of the stock from dark recesses and use some cunning packaging on a few others, which all takes time. I really wish the owner of the shop would consider how we are going to pack some of the things we sell. Several of them required export labels too, which can be a bit like writing an essay.

Julia came with me and kept me supplied with sandwiches and coffee, before walking over to the post office with bags of packages. She is going to help tomorrow morning too, by which time we should be caught up. She truly is a jewel amongst women and deserves better than me. Those are my words, not hers, though I’m fairly sure she would be happy to agree.

We also had a number of phone calls, several starting with “Oh, good, you’re open.”

I had to disappoint those customers by telling them that we weren’t, and I was there to pack parcels. On the whole, they took it well, despite the anomaly of having someone answer the phone to say we weren’t open.

 

Hard Times of Old England

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To me, the week between Christmas and New Year has always been a strange time. The presents are done, I can go back to disliking my fellow men with a clear conscience and there is nothing left to do apart from wait for the forced jollity of the New Year.

I’d be happy to start the New Year on Boxing Day and get back to work, but tradition means we have to wait a week. Historically we celebrated the Twelve Days of Christmas, but as there was no TV and no annual holidays I suppose you needed a good feast. When we think of life as historical characters we rarely think of ourselves as peasants do we? Dirty, downtrodden and destined to die young, it’s not really a life that holds any appeal to me. But life as a courtier, with all its pox and politics is hardly more attractive. If I was able to go back in time I’d not want to go back far – some time with anaesthetic, antibiotics and civilised dentistry would do me nicely.

Anyway, here I am, with a laptop and one earphone in. I’ve listened to Feelgood and am now making my predictable way through all the old favourites. I don’t do carols, and I’m very predictable. I really should listen to some modern music. If they ever write any that’s worth listening to i may try it. I’m going to put both earphones in now and listen to a group of old blokes knocking out a song about the state of the nation whilst fronted by a woman who looks like a member of the Women’s Institute. Ah, the Rock and Roll lifestyle. The song comes from the eighteenth century, which tends to support my view that we don’t need modern music. Sadly it also supports my view that there is nothing new in politics and that we will never learn to stop fighting wars.

Now I’m going to go through and do family stuff.