The Christmas continues

We had our annual family Christmas gathering at my father's house.  There were 15 of us, plus my father's friend Richard Bolt who has an infallible sense of when a family feast is going to occur - and turns up on the offchance.  I don't mind feeding him - God knows we have more than enough food - but I mind the fact that he takes up lots of room when we are already a bit cramped... he also sat in on the present giving - and then left silently without thanking anyone.   He also whinged about pudding "I thought I was getting a chocolate pudding" - when they were being cooked to order.   My father says he suffers because he has a vegetarian wife.  That is my father's idea of suffering folks!

We were lavished with lovely presents, fab wine, a crocus voucher, and a Kindle!  Now I will do a Bolt-like whinge... I thought Kindles had a light so you could read them in bed at night, but it doesn't... apparently.  I have downloaded a couple of books and discovered that because I am an Amazon Prime customer I can borrow some books for free...

On Monday we went to London and had dim sum with Tom and Anne - our favourite restaurant, CCK - Cheung Chen Ku - has closed down,.  I am gutted.  The Wong Kei goes undeservedly on - cheap and cheerful I suppose.  We went to the New Loon Fung - which was OK, next time we must try to go to the New World - the last one with trolleys apparently.

I have a head cold and this is slightly blighting my days - but tonight we have two parties to go to - so I must brace up!

A Good Christmas

The secret to a good Christmas is probably fierce planning and a rigorous timetable enforced with charm....

This Christmas seems to have come upon us fast - largely because of all the money stuff - meaning that we could really only spend money with confidence after 15th December.  We had a good day in Canterbury on 22nd, getting larger than usual pressies for everyone.  I am not used to spending so much money, it was a shock, but for once.   Still, if our income increases, then this could become a bit regular.

The food was a bit different - ham and tongue, but beef, rather than Turkey...a really nice pudding - and lots of veg, the Irish christmas cake - although we had to use Scotch rather than Irish whiskey... I sadly burned it, but the icing and homemade marzipan make up for it I think...

The snowman slipped on the Icing

Well, I thought it was quite funny...

The boys and Mark and I were all pleased with our pressies.  I went to a lovely mass at St. Augustine's - and found Ned on the way back - when we parked the car, we heard the Christmas bells and the street decorated with lights (our tree is fab!) it seemed perfect.  I had a chat with Ned about his bombshell - and it seems things are not quite as cut and dried as he had led us to believe... On the Day we woke up at a sensible time and had our stockings - and tea - then breakfast and tidying, cooking and chores, then present opening - then a flying visit by our neighbour, and then a dash for the beach - where we only spent about 40 minutes, because we were expecting visitors about 1.00 - one sent a text saying she'd be there at 1.30 - the other was a complete no show.  I could have coped with that, but a text apologising might have been nice... but I made allowances for that, until I saw that at the time he was due to come to us he had been posting on FB - so what happened?  Perhaps he was abducted by aliens on the way over.   Anyway, we had a lovely meal and nice pressies and a good old slump and idle chat with S - and took a break between the main course and the pudding to enjoy some tv - then back to pudding etc. and then more slump, drifting off during Dr Who...

Slowly bits of washing up and tidying got done - and now we've spent most of the day with the telly and dressing gowns, doing a bit of social media... making charity donations and discovering that we seem to have had two enormous payments from Tax Credits - totalling £7,100.  If it's not a mistake, that will be a great Christmas present!

At last the cavalry

What I like about good news is the way it arrives when you are not pacing up and down expecting it - so I was in the last throes of the freelance lunch and was chatting with someone who was drunker than me.... (not the only one either, have I finally learned moderation?), when my brother in law rang and announced that the money had landed!

Joy was unconfined ish - actually, I was restrained, no need to open a bottle of wine - I had already had sufficient... I texted Ned and asked my sis-in-law for her bank details.  This morning I repaid some debts.  I will do a few more tomorrow.  I would have liked to savour the sight of a £50K bank statement a little bit longer, but hey, it will go up again in a few days...

I was pleased to discover that the habits of frugality were undimmed.  Going around Sainsbury's with M & F we were modest in our purchases (considering it was Christmas...).  I decided to go to Aldi for certain products (parma ham, olive oil and red wines) rather than splash out at Sainsbury.  We did buy some inexpensive champagne - I was briefly tempted by Piper Heidsieck, but then I considered that if you were making champagne cocktails it was much less important what you used, in fact prosecco would be sufficient.

What else?  Nothing really, it's not really frugality - just learning what is essential and what is not.  "Nothing but the best" is all very well as a slogan, but one doesn't need the most expensive ingredients to make the best food.

We came home to slow cooked lamb and roast veg, and a lot of unpacking...  .I also finally chipped the charred surfaces off the cake (oh, the tragedy!) and finished mixing the pudding... I poured more whisky into the cake, and thought the flavour was pretty good, once one got beneath the carboniferous!  Tomorrow, the pudding...finally.  It has been standing about for days (without apparent harm).

When not carrying out my fiscal and domestic duties, I contacted the Guardian about the far right's obnoxious behaviour towards my friend B... death threats etc.  But that's another story, and can wait to see how it develops

The onset of Christmas

Helas!  Each year there are different challenges - really, it should all be as easy as pie, we should have plenty of dosh and be scampering about buying a telly to replace the hand-me-down and second hand ones we own - and then we should be showering each other with careful, thoughtful pressies, sending donations to all our favourite charities, sensibly ordering a moderate feast for Christmas day - and sending out invitations to the Epiphany party.

Last year everything was on hold until we got a payment - this year everything is on hold until my mother in law sends us the money she generously promised us when her house was sold.  Today Ned offered me £150 on condition I used it to buy Christmas pressies online TODAY, because he realised that by the time we got any money, it would be too late to order them in time for Christmas... so I did.

It is beginning to get there, we have had cards printed, because, damn it, three years of e-cards, designed by me, is getting tiresome... and we have written some of them.    I have put all the dried fruit for the pudding and cake to soak over night in brandy and whisky respectively.  I have ordered a tree, bought two lumps of ham and some salmon to put in the freezer...   I have also bought M's birthday pressies - and this year it will just be the 4 of us at the feast, since his sister in law is tied down with carer responsibilities, while his mother is hardly going to return from Cardiff for the event.  So no pressure to get everything just so for the day - which is utterly wonderful!

What has not been done:  any presents for anyone not directly descended from me...the calendar is marked " shopping frenzy" for 22nd December - I am guessing we will have dosh by then.  And as we are not seeing anyone else before 29th December - that gives us 3 shopping days after Christmas (God forbid we should shop on Boxing Day, but I can imagine someone will want to).   Decorating has not got very far - I thought we'd do a bit a day - maybe tomorrow.  The main thing is to have enough bottles of decent wine and chocolates to distribute to those who have invited us to parties (5) before Christmas... the other problem is going to be pacing ourselves so that we are fit to get up the next day and go to the next party!

I am feeling disenfranchised - no turkey, by popular request, so all my usual planning - prepping the bread sauce and the sausagemeat stuffing and cranberry sauce and stuffing them in the freezer has not been necessary.  I do still have to find a tongue though.  Must ring Rook's.  I am currently allowing myself to believe it MAY work smoothly this year.  For the first time since the kids were born we are having 2 friends to lunch - and this is a real departure.  I am finding it very odd.  I am feeling under interested in the food - need to get inspiration, I think Elizabeth David's Christmas Food should provide a prod.  At least she won't have dried cranberries and pomegranate seeds in everything!

It begins: The Malice of Fairies

This post is borrowed from the Only Writing blog - the one no one reads.  

Well - I have been researching, and reading and getting involved in someone else's project, and generally being dissipated in the last two weeks - no submissions, no writing, no "progress" and I have felt thoroughly at a lose end... I know I am happiest when I'm writing... and so, although I didn't intend to think about writing "The Malice of Fairies" for a while, I was at a thoroughly loose end this afternoon - and as a result, thought I might just try a scene - so now I have 2,500 words - which might be the beginning of the book.  Writing is an excellent cure for boredom, although it has the negative effect of sometimes making other things seem boring.

I like the words  I am pleased,  starting GATD was a slow business, and no reason why this shouldn't take a while to get going either...Actually, damn it - I am really excited and happy and feel like proclaiming it to the
world....

I am also pleased that I am not repeating the mistakes of other books (writers):if at first you don't succeed, try again with something similar... I suppose my heroine Deidre is like Anastasia a bit - not as nasty though - differently neurotic!

Very happy making - and I don't HAVE to do it, since I have the other prospect to console me - but I am not discussing that here until I know for sure.

Northern Soul: the movie

Having seen and enjoyed Pride enormously, I was really looking forward to something of the same warm glow from Northern Soul.  Although far from being a hardcore fan, there are some fantastic tracks that are among my favourites (few of which featured in the film).   However, I once had a Lancastrian boyfriend who used to go to all-nighters at the Wigan Pavilion.  He was an object of some curiosity at Oxford - where he was seen as a stand-out from the other guys, who were mostly afficionados of "Public School Rock" (Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd et al).   We used to sing soul songs to each other during our brief relationship.

I'd guess Northern Soul was a slightly less well funded film than Pride although costumes and hairdos made me almost nostalgic, while the factories and domestic interiors were every bit as dull and grubby as I remember them being.  The story was very different - it had all the "coming of age" elements, betrayal by friends, (both features of Pride) plus a bit of violence, estrangement from parents, lots of drugs, and massive amounts of dancing.  I would have enjoyed it more if (a) the hand held camera shots hadn't made me sick, (b) the female lead had been a better dancer  (c) they had paid a little more attention to correct language - "soz" was not in use during the 70s (unless it's a Lancashire thing), and there were other phrases which grated.   But I'm old, this film was not made for me.

The dancing, on the whole was great - and that strange male look - the skinny torsos above the wide kecks was extraordinarily evocative of the aforementioned boyfriend...

Wonder if the ex-boyf ever danced like this?

On the whole, pretty good - very gritty and realistic and a great way to enjoy Northern Soul music.  It doesn't end quite as sentimentally as Pride - but then again, it was the story of individuals rather than a movement - and set in Lancashire (which I have little connection with) rather than S. Wales - which is heaving with distant cousins. And I wasn't involved with it, whereas I was with the miners.  So my feelings about it are very much more stunted.  

Romance, uber Babes and other Sunday afternoon thoughts

While prepping the dinner, I was listening to an ancient cassette, called "party tape".  I don't know exactly when it was made - some time between 1988 and 1993 I guess.  I was listening to is and suffering the usual waves of nostalgia for things I shouldn't be nostalgic for at all...notably a bad friend of my ex-husband's who made a pass at me over the washing up.  I don't really like him, haven't seen him for 20 years and don't in any way yearn for him, so perhaps that wasn't nostalgia - just an ambiguous memory.

The playlist included

Katrina & The Waves: Walking on Sunshine
Isley Brothers: This Old Heart of Mine
Supremes::  No matter what sign you are
Gaye & Terrell ?  - I'm going to make you love me
Wet,wet, wet  Temptation
Simply Red:  Infidelity
Hall & Oates:  Camellia
Grace Jones Warm Leatherette  etc. etc.

Not my usual romantic sludge... but oh so bloody 80s...

It is mostly fairly danceable to - but my sudden overwhelming thought was "Who was I in love with then?"  It was sort of pre-Mark, post James - the inter-war period of my superb singledom.  I was "in love" with about 3 or 4 people during that period - and there were people I was in relationships of a sort with...I don't remember dancing with any of them to any of these (except the bad friend, and that was earlier). I just couldn't imagine who this music was for, who was I yearning for, who was I going to force to love me, who would I go back to 1000 times...

It was a rather regrettable thought - I know I've always had a habit of being "in love with" someone - but why?  In theory this period of my life was my "searching for suitable husband material" phase - yet I spent it mooching after completely unsuitable unhusbandly material - I suppose the Toad was wealthy - so he might have passed, but the others, well, I dunno... too short, too unstable, too drunk, too gay, take your pick.  Certainly weren't being chosen for their superior genetic material.  What does this say?   That Romance is not about the search for a mate?  Perhaps. I know when I discouraged K's marriage thoughts that was a very considered decision, based on his genetic material...longevity, etc. yet I was amazingly in love with him.  This is a mystery I cannot resolve,.  After all, surely the function of romance is to sugar the pill of the permanence of a relationship - so that several kids and rows later at least you can look back and remember when you did feel romantic about them.

Shirley Conran quoted a friend of hers the other day, saying "After 50 it's not about getting the man you want, it's wanting the man you've got."  This is only tenuous linked to the foregoing - but it's true!

The next thought about it all was that a lot of that 80s music was about the uber Babes - as Mark persists in calling them... and that neither Ned nor Finn, in their trawls through the musical past has landed on the 80s as offering any music worth while!