the sleigh ride starts!
A weekend spent putting up the Christmas tree, marzippaning and icing the Christmas cake and getting stuck into the first of this years’ viewings of Miracle on 34th Street and Elf (with Muppet Christmas Carol and It’s A Wonderful Life to follow this weekend, courtesy of the Prince Charles Cinema’s ever-reliable December programme) has finally brought about the gradual segue into the Christmas state from just plain stressed and knackered, and a relief it is too.
The crap weather (not that much of a consideration normally, but a monumental pain in the arse for anybody having to travel further than to Waitrose and back) and general dourness of November is (hopefully) past, I have got used to having to put on lights if I want to do anything beyond watch TV after 3pm and the approaching longer-than-usual break is well within sight!
An unusual amount of tedious badgering for services not on offer and days/times when I don’t work has surprised me this year, and has (predictably) been responded to with mixed levels of civility depending on the variables. If it saves time, let everyone be assured that if I’m not that desperate for your money in April or August, I’m not that desperate for it now, either. I only bring it up after three such occasions in the last week, which is extremely rare for me even allowing for the weaponised non-reading stance of the Adultwork users. Just find somebody else, ffs.
That aside, between tonight’s long-anticipated trip to see Prodigy back at Brixton (as much fun as ever, but exhausting) and tomorrow’s carol service over at the Barbican I will be busy getting all my last minute jobs done before packing up for the Christmas break, so whilst I’ll be here I will not be available ‘NOW’ any more than I am the remainder of the time and the day is starting to fill up already. Saturday morning; possible but unlikely.
Instead of a Song Of The Week, the time has arrived to enjoy my favourite YouTube video of the year instead. Despite the appearance of the 28 Years Later trailer last week, Nyango Star has won the internet.
More soon! I can’t be sure exactly how soon, but I’ll be here…
an even quieter place…
…is where I currently am, for some last minute R&R before the Christmas panic excitement gets into full swing.
I will be back for business as usual from Wednesday, which will also mark two weeks to the day since I baked my Christmas cake for the first time in a good few years! Cake 2024 is wrapped up safely awaiting a nice drink (as am I), and will be taken out periodically when I get back, eventually to be rolled in marzipan and icing (if only). All courtesy of this kit from Waitrose (which has ensured for the first time ever that I’m not still trying think of ways to use up mixed peel in August) and a bit of help from the spice box – there’s never enough, after all.
The vigilant will have spotted the Christmas hours page is up and with relatively little effort required beyond changing the days, since for the first time in probably a decade I have no availability between Christmas and New Year – sorry!
Despite this being traditionally a good week for everyone to get up off the sofa, brush the Celebrations wrappers aside and stagger into town for a bit of a change of scene, the timings plus station closures have made it sufficiently impractical so as to be not worth the bother. Plus the last time I worked on a New Years’ Eve was somewhere between farcical and catastrophic and I will not be chancing that again.
But it’s still a month away! For the next couple of weeks, it’s going to be busy busy right up until Saturday 21st. Not quite yet, though.
Some calming nostalgia is required just to set the pace for the next few hours, and who better than Gomez, whom I once saw in a field somewhere I was too mashed to remember the following day, let alone some twenty five years on. You can never have too much Gomez.
More soon! I will be back directly…..
a quiet place…
It really is! November that is – at least once Guy Fawkes night is over. Even the fireworks don’t seem as loud as they were, although the trip down to the celebrations in Battersea Park a couple of weeks ago was well worth the effort since it included not just fireworks but stage shows, well above average food and superior toilets (fairly necessary for fifty thousand people, but far from guaranteed). I will definitely be back next year!
Given the urge to stay closer to home as it gets dark earlier and earlier I have been spending a bit of time getting acquainted with the Barbican highwalks, after deciding to check out the new escalators which appeared next to the Moorgate station entrance a couple of months ago. I have studied the rules (parkour is strictly forbidden, as is trumpeting), got lost on several occasions and wound up in the Barbican café, art gallery and library a few times more but it’s all part of the learning experience, that being learning that any ideas I previously had of renting a flat actually in the Barbican rather than just near it would have been a level of insanely misplaced self-belief normally the preserve of Donald Trump.
Planning ahead has been the modus for the few weeks; for anybody who hadn’t noticed, Christmas is looming. While skiving the entire month of December for shopping, food obsessing and festive nights out would be overkill (and I am anticipating doing a lot of all) it turns out that I’ll be having something of a enforced long break, since there are extensive station closures up to New Year, Liverpool Street for one being shut from Christmas Day until Thursday 2nd. Ouch.
Paddington, Euston and St Pancras plus the Thameslink are also having a little rest, so whilst I will be in town from the 30th December on I will likely be finding other ways to occupy myself, obviously without venturing back into Mumsnet-land (see Before Midnight last month; Christ alive). Plenty of entertainment is in the offing regardless, including ballet and the New Year Proms within twenty four hours of each other, plus a fair bit of Waitrose-dependent staying-in time and Pokémon Go to force me outside into the real world at least once a day.
I will be getting the usual Christmas blog page up soon too with full details, although as ever the best way to find out is to just ask. The next couple of weeks will be decidedly lo fi, prior to a brief trip away at the end of the month and the start of Christmas proper – yay!
Song Of The Week is continuing in the mellower vein – especially after the hi energy of last week! – with another perennial favourite. The weather forecast is suitably abysmal, so feet up and kettle on it is.
More soon! Next job, the Christmas hours – watch this space…