I'm out a here!

Last day of work before Christmas for me!  Back on the 5th of January!

Ooooh yeah!

Don't hate me for that, I have worked my butt of this term and totally deserve it!  Not that you don't, of course, I am sure that you deserve a good break just as much as I do?

So, Number One Son is home from Uni, the decorations are up thanks to Mrs RC and our daughter who, not having school or college to worry about has had time to help out a lot.  But Mrs RC has taken on the brunt of the work, so I am hoping to take some of the strain once I finish work.

The dogs are getting in the swing of it all - they keep nosing the presents that are under the tree, but are good enough to stop there.  At the moment, anyway...

I think our Christmas will be fairly quiet when we get there.  My mum will be spending the day with us, which will be nice.  She will be bringing Spot with her, who enjoys a visit to his old stomping ground.  He used to be my dad's dog, and we used to walk him with ours.  Here he is having a cuddle with my mum.

He has put on a bit of weight (not too much) since moving in with her, but they are both loving living together.  They are very good for each other, Spot keeping my mum active since she lost Humphrey the pony.

I am not sure how much online time I will have for the next however long - I will try to keep tabs on my favourite bloggers out there, so you are more likely to get stupid comments on your blog than you are to see stupid posts here, but who really knows?  I intend to get in some writing time on my book, play a few games (watch out for photos of my Star Wars games!), drink a few beers (this probably combining with the other activities mentioned), so I think this break will be a good one.

Have a great Christmas, everyone!

I gave in...

Last night we had our Christmas Pub Quiz.  It was a busy event, the pub was jammed solid and a good time was had by all.

We do our questions with the intention of making it a light hearted affair.  For example, one round was photos of famous and infamous people with Santa heads superimposed on them.  The questions are printed onto sheets so each team can gather round and discuss them.  This is much better than trying to ask each question verbally...  Things are pitched so that by the start of the 4th and last round, most teams are in with a shot at victory - I don't really enjoy them when the gap gets too wide and half of the teams give up trying after a couple of rounds.

So, a fun evening and a few beers later, I headed home on my bike. The road was amazingly clear, so I cranked up the music and made good time.

But it was still very late by the time I hit the sack.  Can't remember the last time I saw 1am!

Then there was this morning.  I drifted awake to the sound of high winds and rain.

My body just did not want to know.  It wanted to stay in bed for the day.

But I got up anyway, sorted the bird table, fed the rabbits and fish.

Then, instead of getting my bike out, I caught the bus.

It doesn't happen often. 

I hate the bus.

It makes me feel sick.

And it took over an hour to get me to Canterbury. 

My normal cycle time is 40 minutes.  Might have been more than 40 minutes this morning, of course, with the wind, but the journey was still long.  On the bright side, I did write a few more pages of my book as I sat there as the bus chugged along, so all was not lost.  It was strange to sit on the bus with the wind and rain out side and write about bathing in the warm sea on a hot summer's night in the Mediterranean.  I wanna to back!  I need a week or two to top up my research for my book!

Not too much to ask, is it?

The Town Tree

You might remember that, a couple of years ago, my town made the national news.

We had the worst Christmas Tree in Britain!

A few locals, myself included, tried to make it look better, but it was a lost cause really...

This one was replaced one night, by a Special Forces team, but as they failed to put the public's decorations on the new tree this was not a success either.

Last year, we were promised a massively expensive tree, which I don't think was much better than the Charlie Brown tree above.

OK, it was a BIT better, but this pic really did catch its good side.  It certainly failed to live up to the hype, IMO...

So, what have we got this year?

Smaller than last year's tree, but nice proportions, and multi-coloured lights!  I think it is rather nice!  Hopefully I will catch it after dark soon, so we can really see how good it is.

Anyway, we have failed to make national news this year, we can hold our heads high again!

Friday?

So just where did the week go?

Or is that the right way to put it?

This has seemed to be an endless week, with the weekend crawling towards me, often seeming to shuffle in the opposite direction when I glanced away, but at the same time I have had no time to do anything.  Does that make sense?

OK, I have managed to keep up with reading and commenting on most of the blogs I follow - sincere apologies if I have failed to visit yours - but that has been about it.  Oh, I did rewrite a section of my zombie book!  There had been a part where one of the main characters was got, but as I wrote it I saved him and let a bunch of others be got instead.  But killing the others was not sitting well with me, so I saved them too.

Yeah!  Felt a lot better!

Except for the knock on effect in later scenes which had to be changed because the main character was no longer wracked with guilt about the deaths of the others!

More rewriting ensued, mournful scenes where this character was comforted and reassured became much more upbeat celebrations, motherly kisses on the head became rather more flirtatious...

Yep, I like this version a lot more.

And now the weekend has finally arrived!  Last weekend before Number One Son returns from Uni, two more before I finish work for the holidays - yep, I hate to brag (no I don't) but I finish on the 19th and don't return until the 5th!  Ooooh yeah baby!

All in all?  Life is good!

Time for a cheesy Christmas song!