Lathany

Today is the last day without guests in the house before New Year. Tomorrow my parents arrive for a couple of days. As they leave, bateleur's friend Gavin arrives. Then, as he departs New Year's Eve itself happens and we have people over for roleplaying.

Not a bad combination, but certainly the busiest end of year I've had in... well, years.

Ryan is ill. This involves no fuss whatsoever. It means that halfway through the morning I found him wandering about in his dressing gown. After careful questioning he said he had a pain in his head. However, it had disappeared at lunchtime and he wanted lunch, so we hoped it was a short, passing headache. Sadly not; this afternoon he disappeared. It turned out he had put himself to bed. He's looking white and tired. Again he has a headache. I've fed him some Calpol in the hopes it helps him recover quickly.

In slightly better news, bateleur did the final food shopping this morning, having got up early to avoid the crowds. So we are all ready for Xmas.

Today I have been trying to do as little as possible as I recover from my latest cold. This has meant a bit of Terraria with Ryan and a bit of Awakenings with Bea. And I cleaned the shower, but it needed it.

We've also started wrapping the twins presents and have planned food over Christmas.

Tired now.

( A whole roast suckling pig under the cut )

There were sixteen of us and still we were defeated by the size of the pig. I ended up with a doggy bag (which I'm sure Alistair would call a hoggy bag). It was a lovely, lovely evening and bateleur enjoyed it muchly.

Today I met up for a drink after work with two friends who are former work colleagues. One of them spent some of the evening telling us about having been given tickets by his nephew to go and watch chess boxing. We couldn't quite believe that the Royal Albert Hall would run such a thing in its loading bay, but apparently chess boxing is real ('cos Wikipedia says so). My friend said the audience were more interested in the chess rounds than the boxing. He also said that the competitors all seemed to be bankers and were cracking in-jokes.

I retaliated by telling them all about watching The Final Fantasy Concert which was also at the Royal Albert Hall. Usually this wins me the "attended weirdest event" award. Not this time.

Today I baked the Christmas Cake. This was phase two, having soaked the fruit in whiskey for a week. So far, so good.

This afternoon bateleur and Bea went to see jezzidue and C while I stayed home with Ryan. He played Terriaria (we failed at launching our joint game) and I did a bit of housework.

On the train today I finished reading All Clear by Connie Willis which bateleur had lent to me. It's science fiction and World War II. My verdict on completing it was that this was a good book but not a great one. It was too confusing to start with, the characters didn't have quite enough character for the story being told, at least one of the deaths was of the "World War II is really dangerous" variety rather than because there was any other need/point to it and that the plot was a bit too simple. However, nice concept, inventive execution and at least the author got right into the action.

However, having finished it, I looked it up (as you do) and it's apparently part two of Blackout. Not merely "written by the same author" but the second half of one book. Had I known that, I'd have read Blackout first - but now I know the ending, I don't want to go back to the beginning. It may be a lot better if you start off in the right place.

Today was the rare occasion when bateleur failed to get up for breakfast having been struck down by the latest lurgy. Fortunately, he started to recover mid-day and has been downstairs since then.

Having missed all the Christmas fun yesterday, I finally made a start on the cake (which takes about three weeks - so I'm just about in time) and this evening I put the tree up. The twins each claimed a piece of tinsel and took them off to their rooms. I'm nervously wondering where I'll find them when I go up.

It's hard to get out of bed in the cold and dark. I'm glad that it's Friday and I can sleep in tomorrow.

Last night some idiot failed to run me over, despite a good try. I got to Isleworth station to see a car inching forward, on the road at the entrance. Then the reverse lights came on and it reversed a little. Then it moved back into first gear. I cross the road some distance behind it, quickly. Fortunately speedily enough that its quick throw back into reverse gear followed by a fast and long move backwards did not hit me. Things like looking around, or indeed not ****ing about by the entrance to a station where a lot of people walk in and out didn't seem to occur to the driver. However, they stopped then and looked out at me for a long time. (And probably heard me say "pillock"). Maybe they'll be more careful another time.

I still have a cold. It's the same cold as the one chrestomancy has, we both started a week ago, and I want it gone right now.

I made some more progress on the Christmas shopping this lunchtime, I'm aware that it's December and I've got more left than usual. I've also started my Christmas cards. I like this time of year - even when I'm panicking about getting it all done in time.