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Saturday 27 December 2014

I survived Christmas

Day one, at the parent's of daughter.2's squeeze. They had some very nice nibbles to start with, including my favourite cashew nuts, followed by a main meal of turkey and stuffing. Not one, but two turkeys! And I got a leg, my favourite. I drive there, ladysolly drove back, so I was able to get a few drinks down me, including a very nice mulled wine - several glasses!

Day two at daughter.1. She also made ... guess what. And it was also good, but even better, it was acompanied by piping hot pigs in blankets, which I love. Also parsnips, brussels, stuffing, roast potatoes and peas. Yum!

I drove there, carefully avoiding all known shopping centers, which meant that the satnav couldn't be used, because Madge doeesn't know about avoiding the Boxing Day shopping frenzy. We went down the M40 then the A40, but then cleverly diverted at Hangar Lane around the North Circular. Not so cleverly, ladysolly bade me go South, then after I'd committed to that, she changed her mind. "North". Doing u-turn on the North Circular isn't recommended, but I soon found a place to change direction. Then, after we were heading the right way (clockwise), she told me to turn off to the right (which, of course, meant leaving the road on a leftward lane, but I can cope with that). What I couldn't cope with, is that she told me to turn just a few seconds after we passed the turn-off. So we went quite a long way further before I could get off. After that, I let Madge do the navigating, and she did it very well.

But we arrived in good time, and the pigs in blankets made up for everything.

Christmas is a time of giving, and I got given socks, gloves, a fake pine cone (that will feature in a forthcoming cache), a boot scraper which will see a lot of use in future, I don't know why we didn't think of getting one before. And a welding kit (160 amp transformer, helmet, gloves, breathing mask) because I have a fancy to learn how to weld, since I've found soldering to be so useful.

And a mountain of books.

I prefer the paper sort of book. It's partly because I like the feel of a book, and partly because it's easier to organise physical books than kindle-stuff. Also, I can give my second hand books to other people, which I don't think you can do with e-books.

But, of course, paper books require physical storage. Last time we moved, I was persuaded to give away my huge book collection to charity, but I've built up another huge collection since then. Many of them are on shelves, but there's also several piles. A pile is about 50 books on their sides, on top of each other, leaning against a wall and against other piles. The spines face out, so I can see what's where. It's all pretty stable, although not completely - I was woken in the middle of the night a few months ago by an almighty crash. My first thought was "House fallen down!", my second was "did I just fall out of bed?" but then I put on the light, and there were books all over the floor. A pile had toppled, and taken two other piles with it.

So anyway. "Books unread" are in a special place, on three shelves. And what's very nice now, is that I have more "books unread" than is room for on those three shelves.

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