Tag Archives: presents

A Fresh Start

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I was so full of ideas this morning that I filled two pages of my A4 notebook before I even got my trousers on. It’s maybe not the most dignified of mental pictures, but it shows the wisdom of always keeping a notebook close to hand.

Most of them will, of course, not develop much further. I could feel that from a few of them as they hit the page and scurried across the book. Some will not be good enough to develop, though a few will be merged with other ideas. Some will, I confess, be illegible by the time I have another look. My handwriting is truly, and embarrassingly, terrible.

That will still leave plenty. It’s quite likely that some will never be developed simply because I move on to other things before finishing the list from this morning. That is the life of a poem. Sometimes it soars, but it, more often it staggers or simply slumps.

Sunset over Wilford, Notts

Sunset over Wilford, Notts

I really must get a grip. I have some haiku to finish, because they need to be submitted tomorrow. I also need to arrange my buildings insurance (which just means remembering to pay for it) and order the Christmas food. It’s only ten days to Christmas and I am not at all prepared. I’ve ordered Julia’s main present (which probably won’t get here until after Christmas) and a supplementary present which I hope will get here before Christmas. The post is unfortunately very random. In my defence, she didn’t tell me what she wanted until last night, so it’s not entirely my fault. However, we don’t currently have a turkey. I’m not that bothered myself, I’d be happy with a tin of corned beef and a sprig of holly, but everybody else expects turkey.

At the moment my only proper preparations for Christmas are two tubes of cheese footballs I bought several months ago, a Christmas pudding and a packet of stuffing. As preparations go, it’s not impressive.

Sunset over Wilford, Notts

Sunset over Wilford, Notts

These area few sunset photos I took last week. I’m not sure they were successful, looking at them in this size, but at least they are new.

 

Things That Worry Me

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Number One – my teeth disintegrating. As you may know, I’m in for a tooth extraction tomorrow (despite the fact it’s barely twinged since I went to the dentist about it).

I have been thinking I was over-reacting, but last night it started aching again and I’m now very keen on having it removed. It’s been going on a while so it’s time to be decisive.

For the last few months I seem to have been finding a lot of chalky bits in my mouth. It’s worrying, particularly after I had one disintegrate a couple of years back.

I seem to spend a lot of the evening finding bits of chalk in my mouth, which is bad news, and has been occupying my thoughts far too much. However, I realised what it is a couple of days ago. It’s the chalky bits from the tablets I take every night.

Number Two – plumbing. The house’s plumbing, not mine. Mine is way down the list. In winter I always worry about the plumbing. We’ve been here 30 years, we’ve had a couple of plumbing problems, but nothing we can’t cope with. But I spend several weeks each year worrying about it. It’s a Christmas tradition.

 

Bakewell, Derbyshire
Bakewell, Derbyshire
Bakewell, Derbyshire

 

As you can see from the black spot in the duck picture I’m using the old camera. I’ll explain why in a later post. The spot only shows when you use the zoom.

Number Three – cocking up Christmas. A month before Christmas Julia starts refusing to tell me what she wants as a present. Then, a week or two later, she hands me a wad of cash and tells me the whole Christmas holiday depends on me. Then, just as we reach the posting deadline for Amazon, she tells me what she wants.

I wake up at night sweating at the idea of disappointing Julia or failing to produce Christmas dinner.

It was quite relaxing spending last Christmas in Suffolk, though I did worry about the plumbing a lot while we were away.

A number of you are probably shouting “death” at the blog. This, I hope, is a comment on the fear of death, rather than a critical reaction to my blogging.

Well, to be honest, I’m not much afraid of death. At 60 I can still pretend it’s a long way off. Anyway, compared to the stress of Christmas, death isn’t that bad.

 

My sandwich – in memoriam
The Padlock Bridge
Emptying out by 3.15

This afternoon, to avert the chance of a disappointed wife, I took a trip to Bakewell, where I visited an excellent jeweller, ate a hot turkey sandwich and was shown how to avoid paying 20 pence to use the toilet. I saw “shown” as I’m not admitting to anything…

I can show you the shop but as she reads the blog I can’t picture the things I bought. I may show them on Boxing Day. Prepare to be surprised by my lack of imagination.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

It’s Christmas…

 

Home for 4.30.

The days can be short in winter…

The Best Laid Plans…

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I didn’t quite get the Armistice Day post done as I suggested in the last post.  After writing two part posts – probably a thousand words or so in total -I decided to give it a miss because it wasn’t working.

At that point I switched over to cookery. Belly pork and roasted veg for tea, chicken and ham pie for tomorrow and vegetable curry for Wednesday. Tuesday, which you may have noticed was missing, will be fishcakes. I cheated by buying fishcakes last night, so I didn’t need to make any.

With the associated washing up, and moving of red cabbage, this took a surprisingly long time. Finding the tarragon took the best part of ten minutes because it’s a small packet in a chaotic kitchen. Julia had unpacked it last night and as she had neither left it in the bag or put it in the fridge I was left slightly clueless.

That left me with the choice of breathing life into a moribund post on Armistice Day or transcribing the list of Farmers’ Markets.

If you consider that the transcribing was more fun than the blogging you will see how badly things were going. It kept turning into a rant on the use of the poppy and the Great War centenary as a way of making money.

Things took a significant downturn when we had to do a Health and Safety assessment and fill out a wad of monitoring and personal development forms. It went badly.

Not as badly as the search for a birthday present though, that is really going badly and Julia isn’t helping by refusing to tell me what she wants.

Hopefully she wants a brightly-coloured paper bag containing supermarket chocolates, flowers and face cream, because it looks like that’s what she’ll be getting.

 

Get that party started

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First event of the day – phone call from Number 1 son enquiring about the chance of a lift on Friday. Seems he’s bought so many presents that he won’t be able to carry them all. It’s his first Christmas since he started working full time. You can’t fault his generosity, but as a parent, I’d rather he invested it in National Savings Products for his future. (Yes, there’s no pleasing me, is there?)

We posted the last of the Christmas cards this morning – I’ve decided I really should stay in touch with more of my family rather than just meeting them at funerals, a sentiment expressed in several of the cards I’ve had this year.

When we drew up at the farm we had a phone call to tell us the taxi would be late. It seems the driver had managed to reverse in Vicki’s drive, put his back wheels on the lawn, and then get stuck by dropping the clutch and spinning the wheels.

Dave was here when we arrived, unloading the Christmas presents he has been making in his shed. Santa has many helpers at this time of year.

I’ve just been reminded that it’s nearly 11.00 and people will be expecting to eat at 12.00 – so I’m off to do the sandwiches.

Time flies…