The last christmas to be spent in this house was a quiet one. The week previous to it, I managed to fall up the stairs and sprain my ankle quite badly and so I spent the week hobbling around on a rather bruised foot. Come christmas day and I was knocking back painkillers like smarties, not that they helped much. Coralie stayed until the afternoon so we had a drink and something to nibble on before she left. We exchanged gifts, and quite frankly, Coralie is doing quite well for herself.

Tatiana and I then watched a couple of episodes of Desperate Housewives, a present from the girls, before Tatiana embarked on cooking the evening meal of lamb. I managed to prepare the entrée seeing as I could do it seated at the kitchen table, and we both both enjoyed the meal despite the fact that Tatiana almost burnt the spuds. We watched more TV before going to bed after what seemed to be a short day with very little company. Heavens knows where I’ll be next year, but it can’t get worse than this years’.

My dad had sent me a SAD lamp for christmas but due to the weather it hadn’t yet arrived – I could have done with a blast of light. Still, it was the first white christmas that I can remember – ever, although Tatiana had to push Coralie’s car as it was stuck deep in the snow. Even now, the roads are pretty bad, but thankfully, people appear to be driving very carefully, apart from Little Miss Giggles (Coralie) who drove over a pedestrian crossing today that had five people on it. Fortunately, they were no where near the car.

“Oooops,” she said, “I didn’t see them.”

I should have bought the girl glasses for driving – she misses sign-posts too.

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Then there are the god-awful pop-carols that are played over and over again on the radio, in the metro, in shops and christmas markets that send you to bed yelling out ‘IT’S CHRISSSSSSSSTMAAASSS’ before taking a heavy sedative so as to blank it all out. Never has the weather forecast been followed as closely as this time of the year as despite disruptions to any form of travel, everybody still wants a white christmas for which we can blame ol’ Bing and Hallmark.

Some of you may have decided to escape this all by going abroad where the climate is more favourable and christmas isn’t celebrated, which is fair enough, but the christmas commercialisation bug has managed to bite you right there, because how much did that little holiday cost you? You may have avoided your family, but you still spent money, so the joke is on you, matey.

Those who have not had to go to 15 christmas drinks and mince pie do’s, or worse, suffer the office christmas party may enjoy this time of the year and look forward to meeting and sharing these days with those that you have invited to stay.

An insider has told me of how her cousin has totally disrupted their christmas this year, and after many others in the family disagreeing to wear either beige, brown or blue so as not to clash in the photos – has decided to bring her new kitten to the evening. There are times like this when I think myself lucky not to be involved in families like that.

So to all of you reading this, I hope that the following days are spent with people you choose to spend time with and we, at Twat Mansions, wish you all a very happy holiday.

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Due to the medication that I have to take I have an extremely bad memory which would come back if I came off them. These days I put it down to old age and quite simply, I’m losing my mind. A classic example is when I confiscate things from Todd for 24 hours. When he asks for whatever the item is, I’ll be buggered if I can remember where I put it. I also hide things from Coralie as she believes that she has the right to use everything in this household. The trouble is, I can never remember where I’ve hidden the item and I do owe her an apology as I blamed her for nicking my make-up remover. I’d hidden the bottle from her. Oooops.

So finding that lovely message from a former neighbour has made my christmas – that, and finishing the christmas shopping. The shops were amazingly empty this year, it was bizarre. As I have had to cut back on my christmas present budget this year, the least I could do was to treat the family to christmas crackers. I showed the Twat who nodded in approval saying “I’ve always thought that explosions in the house are a good idea.”

Hmmmm.

I’m so happy – salut, Jean-marc!

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I wonder at the stupidity of people sometimes. If I really wanted to buy a book that was out of print I would contact the author (presuming that said author has a web site of some sort – most do these days, if not all), and ask if it was possible to buy a book directly from the author. I have almost 300 copies of my book in England, and about 3 here which I will sign and post to anybody who would like one – at quite a lower price than that going on Amazon.

It is too late for this Christmas, unless bought for a birthday early next year – or whenever – I don’t care. But I know that a signed book is worth more than one that is not.

Ho hum.

I think Firefox is trying to trick us into believing that we will, after all, get a white christmas as snow is forecast for Thursday. I prefer to remain sceptical about that and enjoy the snow that we presently have, especially as I have to go into town tomorrow to find 2 more small presents. The earlier I am into town the better. The christmas ‘food’ shopping has been bought and as often, we will be having a raclette by request of the children. That will last until the new year at least as no doubt the girls will be visiting their boyfriends and Todd will be visiting his girlfriend. Or simply friends.

It’s time to turn on those christmas carols.

Oh yes, indeed.

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The move has been a longed-for project, but I was afraid of losing all my comments at Haloscan. It appears that they have all managed to move over, including 20,000 triplicates or so, but I think that Andy has managed a good job – we just need the odd tweak here and there. Andy Ramblings has been gracious enough to host this on his server and add his extensive IT knowledge when Andy was up against a wall, so I thank them both.

I’m pleased with the result and extremely annoyed with Haloscan that this ever had to happen at all, but there you go. I’m not the only one to be moving over here as a result of Haloscan selling to JS-Kit, and it will take me a while to learn this new template which is far more complicated than Blogger, but I will, one day, manage my entire site all by my very self.

Well, both Andys hope so.

And so here I am, finally. I’m trying to get rid of 1000 comments a day and am doing quite well so far, although I shall probably be unemployable due to RSI.

Hoping that none of you are stuck in the Eurotunnel or on a Eurostar and that you all have lovely holidays. I shall continue my job-search after the last interview sunk, as I guessed, try and brave the weather and get 3 christmas presents and spend the holiday as a couch-potato.

It’s almost certain that I shall blog, too.

Happy holidays

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