The Man and The Clan have encountered one another, and no blood was shed. Of course we were all far too busy worrying about my hospitalised, elderly father to talk religion (we’d all have agreed on politics at least) – thank goodness!

So, with that box ticked let’s all move on.

• Had I hit some clever button that reverses the keyboard – no, I hadn’t!
• Had I caught an annoying virus – no, I hadn’t!
• Was I stupid – umm, probably not, but I was definitely flummoxed!

Turns out it is some Java bug, and that’s related to me trying to use my work’s ultra complicated, very user-unfriendly VPN!

So it’s fixed, for now, so long as I don’t log on to Signify (which I shouldn’t be doing on holidays anyway!), and I can tell you about how I’m spending these holidays planning for the next two holidays!!!!

Oh yeah, we wanna go away… and we’re looking at a number of options:

Italy, self-catering villas, run by my friend Jane:

www.psmartino.it

Scotland in a VW Campervan, run by another schoolfriend Flora:

www.happyhighlandcampers.co.uk

Or perhaps just France again, anywhere in the South!

In the meantime I’m/we’re Sam-sitting, Sam is like a big version of The Dog, so it’s ‘Big Me, Little Me’!!!!!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas;
Soon the bells will start,
And the thing that will make them ring is the carol that you sing
Right within your heart.*

Christmas Eve, we’ve done the present shopping, the food shopping, we’ve made arrangements not to put The Dog into kennels today (they’re not open on Boxing Day when we go away) – we’re ready to Christmas Rock ‘n’ Roll!

Then we’re off to London, staying at a Lastminute.com Secret Hotel, museums and activities galore for three whole days, just the two of us; I can’t wait!

Happy Christmas one and all!

* Lyrics and images courtesy of: http://xmasfun.com

I know it’s a Cliff Richard song! One I learnt many years ago, to sing as entertainment at a family Christmas with my siblings in fact. It was a ‘suitable’ pop song in the eyes of my parents. But that’s not the point of this post. No. The point is that this year I’m celebrating with my new family, enter stage right The Man, The Boy, and The Dog.

Yesterday I brewed up some mulled wine, and we decorated the Christmas tree to the sounds of Carols from Kings. Today we’re having a roast turkey Sunday lunch, a sort of dress rehearsal Christmas Dinner, and tomorrow I’m wearing Christmas wreath earrings to work.

Christmas has arrived in my life.

I had been feeling rather ‘un-Christmassy’, and was even objecting to the two Christmas cards I’ve already received (some people are too organised!), but, once the trip to Edinburgh was cancelled, I was a new woman: a woman ready to brave Cheltenham town centre on a Saturday (about ten minutes in fact, but that’s a record for me); a woman ready to book the London Eye mulled wine flight; a woman ready to, well ready for nearly anything it has to be said, I’m relieved, released, reliving, really in love. I’m spending this Christmas with a family I love.

Hope you all are too!
Harrietdg

Apologies, I was so upset I couldn’t even blog about what made me say ‘humphf’ at the weekend.

It’s the ‘same old, same old’ anyway… my family poking their noses in where they’re not wanted.

Picture the scene: 30-something woman wants to introduce her new fella to her family. Seems innocuous? You would think! Nah, woman’s parents send her an email, a tissue of lies and half-truths, about how she’s “making another dreadful mistake”, and I’ll spare you any other quotes.

Well, I think the mark has been well and truly over-stepped. I’m tired of picking myself up, dusting myself down, and trying to give my parents what they want without losing sight of who I am. When Voldemort left I decided I had to look after myself, put myself first, and that’s what I’m going to do now. Nothing in the world could induce me to share any further part of my life with people who only want me to live my life as they see fit.

Humphf!

It’s me and The Man against the world now, and I’m off to draft the reply email.

I am VERY upset

First of all we wanted to go away for a bit of holiday, but we have The Boy to consider (not to mention The Dog), and a budget to keep within. There was talk of Malta, Florence, the USA even, then a lot of consideration of Bordeaux and the lovely hotel we spent last New Year’s Eve in – Bordeaux Sofitel, beds like heaven! But the solution was closer to home: a few days in London, to do museums, and ice-skating, and catch a show, and what-have-you, then back to Cheltenham for a swish NYE:

Cheltenham’s New Year’s Eve Black-Tie Banquet

It promises to be a great evening: nice meal, dancing, casino, champagne bar, and stagger-distance home! If anyone else is at a loose end, get some tickets we’ll see you there!

We’ll go to France later in the year of course, France is home from home for me, in fact here’s hoping France might become ‘home’ again in the not too distant future!

Best of luck planning your own NYEs,

harrietdg

So there I was, felt grotty all last weekend, and what did I do come Monday morning? Yup, didn’t help myself by going into work anyway: “There’s so much to do, I can’t be sick, there’s a deadline we have to meet”. By Tuesday afternoon I was on my knees, and have been there ever since!

The Dog by the way has been ecstatic, as he’s had mummy and daddy‘s company in the daytime!

Now, in my darker moments this week, I was heard to say ‘The Boy should have kept his germs to himself’, and I’m aware that I may also have shared some of those germs with my colleagues because I didn’t listen when The Man said ‘Don’t go in if you’re ill’ . But it’s much worse than that – I read a really terrifying thing on the BBC news website, apparently:

More than one in four commuters has bacteria from faeces on their hands.

In the article they say that some people aren’t washing their hands after they’ve been to the loo! (What? Why? That’s really disgusting!) They go on to explain that hand-washing is one of the most important ways of controlling the spread of infections like diarrhoea, vomiting, colds and flu.

Cripes! I don’t want the norovirus as well, nor do I want to find out whether the flu jab I had is working, I just want to get back to work… perhaps I’ll start wearing those little surgical masks, maybe I should invest in some latex gloves, or maybe, just maybe, you could all just keep your germs to yourselves. Deal?

Voulez Vous was quite a nice Abba Tribute band, but we’ve also got tickets for Bjorn Again which are the best apparently. We’re not just Abba fans though, we’re going to see the Bootleg Beatles too, and yes, we do like more than tribute bands, but the Cheltenham Town Hall seems to have a few lined up for the next few months (we missed Mercury counterfeit Queen)!

Today though we’re feeling too grotty for any activities, so a nice roast dinner, beef this week, and relaxing on the sofa for us.

Have a good Sunday!