Christmas...with friends

Things are ramping up to Christmas for sure. What a brilliant time to meet with friends that you don't see enough of! This weekend has been manic socialising for Chell and I - starting with a night of poker (gamble free of course, my fellow good-solider friends) on Friday night. When we wound up at 2am I was definitely winning (for that round) but I'm sure if we'd have stayed on a bit longer I would have screwed up sooner or later - especially as I didn't have the foggiest what was going on for the majority of the time.

Saturday was shopping in Chelmsford - meeting up with White and Harries. I managed to get part of Chell's present - at last. Sat eve Mel came over with a jolly good bloke called Dave. We did lots of nice activities, including Eyetoy wishywashy, cards-of-comedy, listening to the Ricky Gervais podcast (!? it was like we were listening to the wireless in the 1940s!) and making a video where I was upside down and we drew eyes and a nose on my chin, I wore a shirt on my head and was interviewed for the press. I hope he wasn't too confused by the whole affair.

Today, Sunday, I cooked my first roast Chicken dinner. I've done beef before, but a chicken was a new step for me, and it went well. We had Shawn and Vicki Moye over which was a pleasure! For dinner we had: Roast Chicken, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, cauliflower cheese, yorkshire puddings, peas, sweetcorn, carrots and gravy. It was filling. We played some games and ate and laughed a lot more together before Shawn and Vic had to leave and Chell and I headed to Chelmsford SA for the carol service. We were late - but at least we had a really good excuse this time...

Then after the meeting Garry, Tania, Elliot and Georgia Smith (and Brother Glyn) came back to Mashbury manor for tea and lots of chat. (Actually the kids went upstairs for a spot of eyetoy while us boring adults chatted!) We had a really good time together - it was good to catch up with the Smiths and hear their heart for the SA in Chelmsford; I know we're involved with the right church!

So, that's been the weekend... busy but for good reason, it's great to hang out with friends and have fun together. I love Christmas! All that remains to be said is that if you consider yourself one of our friends we'd love to have you visit someday soon - you might even get to listen to the wireless with us if you're lucky?

Pre-New Years Resolution

I realise it’s a bit early for this but I got to thinking about New Years resolutions. Recently I’ve realised I’m rubbish at committing to things. Here’s a few things I’ve tried to commit to in the past year but haven’t managed to keep up:

• Sit ups
• Getting to bed before 11pm
• Press ups
• Getting into work on time
• Writing a song a week
• Being selfless
• Keeping my garden tidy
• Practising guitar
• Learning Italian
• Not using the computer after 10:30 at night
• Phoning Chell every day – especially when I’m away from home
• Putting savings away
• Phoning Will regularly to check up on him and be there if he needs any doctor advice

Seriously! Look at that list! And be assured - it goes on and on!

So I want and really genuinely need help in becoming more committed to things. Next year I will make the biggest commitment of my life and whilst that is not in the same scale as doing a few press ups or sit ups I need my wife-to-be to assured of the committed steadfast love I have for her now and for the rest of her life.

Hence I have already started thinking about New Years resolutions. You might hate them – I myself am not a fan, but I think that my bad memory would be aided by the exactness of the ‘start date’. I hold myself accountable much more successfully if I can connect a task to a date when it was set. However, I also figure that if I start trying to get into the swing of being a man of commitment now then who knows what I might achieve by Jan 1st?

I’ll keep thinking about those resolutions and record them on here as soon as I can.

Decorating for the Festive Season

Decorating for Christmas presents us with a conundrum of balance. As my design skills do not measure up to the dazzling skill of someone like Lard I find it a testing experience to work out what looks good and what looks… well… nasty.

Over the weekend Roland, Joan, Chell and I went to Bremen in Germany to visit the Christmas markets. There we experienced a true Christmas wonderland – Christmassy stalls tucked away in each and every crevice of the town centre. Sometimes the stalls were a bit off the wall, sometimes a bit clichéd but most of the stalls were nice little shops with nice little Christmas bits and bobs for sale.

So we came home Sunday and last night we decided to decorate - which is really early for me. I grew up in a house where decorations went up on Christmas eve and stayed up ‘til the twelfth night - I have nothing against that either, but this year it felt right to get them up now. We were feeling so Christmassy that we went out and bought some new lights and a tree. When we got home we put a few things up but ran out of time as we had friends coming over. It was a bit of a rush job – and we need to finish it off really soon.

I woke up this morning and had a look at what we had done…I couldn’t work out what I liked and what I didn’t like. Christmas decorations are a matter of personal taste – so what looks nice to me might repulse someone else. Having said that – I couldn’t even work out what I liked myself! However, I do have a few theories on what looks nice at Christmas (whether or not I manage to adhere to these remains to be seen):

1 – Greenery is good. Natural decoration is much better than shiny plastic. Use lots of evergreens and ivy (possibly holly too?)
2 – White lights not coloured lights – and lots of them too
3 – Themed decoration is a good idea – not too many colours
4 – No blow up Santas or ‘Santa - please stop here’ signage

I’d be interested to here your thoughts on this? More importantly I’d love to hear your ideas and tips on how to traditionally decorate your house for Christmas – especially as I have no idea how to make the clever stuff but would really like to!

God bless us, everyone...