The tree - sneak preview

Before Her Majesty has even seen it, revealed in all its glory and nakedness is the Stewart 2008 Christmas Tree:


A "Premium Scottish Highland Nordmann Fir" for those interested. Over to the decorating staff now.

Wet Saturday

Feels like Cornwall here today - warm and wet (didn't I warn you, Kelly/Craig?). I'm up, showered, shaved and dressed - I've even been down to the village for a stroll with Jo - we "posted" our Banchory Xmas cards at the West church and picked up stamps for the rest - job well done.

My quarterly crate of bottle conditioned beers arrived from CAMRA today - 20 of them, but Colin's going to take half off my hands. No Cornish ones this time, but an interesting selection nonetheless:

Do you think this will persuade Craig and Kelly to come up here over the holidays? Jo received her free Flybe flight voucher today so that's both of us got one now. I've given Kelly the choice of us using them to fly down there or, if we can, let them use them and fly up here.

I'm certainly not ready for squash yet - Keith phoned to ask me - so I've agreed to meet him at the Douglas to watch a bit of the Spurs - Man U match at 5:30 this evening instead. Jo's going to a Carol concert tonight.

I noticed that Jo's bought sandpaper and varnish - the bench that was out the back is now in the utility room - you can hardly get in there now. She's obviously planning to spruce the bench up - strange considering I did offer to get Davie the painter from our work back to do it, but there you go. By coincidence, I heard a snippet of Danny Baker and Zoe Ball's radio show this morning and they were featuring great unfinished domestic jobs - could this be a contender?

The Xmas tree has now been at the front door, still in its wrapping, since Tuesday. Maybe Jo was waiting for me to get better to put it up?

If I'd been better, I would have gone to Pittodrie today, but it's as well I wasn't tempted as the damp wouldn't have done me any good. Gary couldn't make it, and Ross was trying to get Thomas to go with him, but couldn't get hold of him yesterday. I'll have to make do with a trip to Dundee next Saturday to see the Jags - the first time this season.

Ross is now off work for 3 whole weeks - a combination of holidays due plus statutory days off and office shut-downs for the holiday. Strangely, he observed normal hours last night - in bed by 9:00 pm and up by 9:00 am this morning!

No change

Still in my jammies and fed up. Trying to keep my mind busy - difficult when you can't concentrate. TV's on but it's mostly background.

I finished Stuart Maconie's Cider with Roadies book that Colin gave me - but this was before I became ill. It was good fun - some interesting musical anecdotes. I think I preferred it to the one I bought for Kelly when we went to hear him at Pitlochry in January. Talking of which, we're thinking of going back there again to take in some of their Winter Words Festival - possibly to listen to Brian Blessed.

I started to try and read the Pink Floyd autobiography that Harry gave me many months ago - I managed a chapter and a bit, but couldn't concentrate any more - which is why I'm now signing off again.

Still alive!

I'm still here - in my jammies and feeling sorry for myself - although not quite as bad as yesterday. I'm not going back to work tomorrow however - I'll leave it until Monday when hopefully, I'll be a bit fitter.

Can't be bothered to write much more - although there's the final episode of Little Dorrit to look forward to tonight. Who'd have imagined a Murder Mystery/Suspense written by Dickens!

Xmas

Jo heard on the box today that it's Cyber Sunday today when everyone goes Xmas shopping on the web. That got me to thinking about what I want and frankly I have no idea other than the usual sweater/shirt/book/CD/DVD choices.

I can't even think of any specific CD's or DVD's that I've been hankering after. Not even browsing the usual end of year "best of 2008" lists that appear in all the papers and music mags can inspire me. Today the Sunday Times published its lists - they had their top 20 rock/pop, headed like a few others by Fleet Foxes - they haven't really inspired me yet, but I suppose I should listen to them a bit more before I write them off.

The Sunday Times also suggested a couple of music books that might be of interest to me - Philip Norman's John Lennon - The Life, and The Olivetti Chronicles by John Peel.

I half toyed with the idea of getting the BOSE DAB add-on to the sound system in the house - but then I thought to myself, how much more radio do I/would I listen to? You can already get all the DAB channels through Sky, albeit not whilst anybody else is watching TV - and there's probably still enough FM channels to keep me happy for now. Maybe one to wait for retirement.

On a separate matter, I've always wanted to go to a gig at the Royal Albert Hall. I tried in vain to get tickets for the Cream reunion concerts last year, but I noticed that Eric Clapton is playing his usual season of gigs there late May next year. I might consider that, although I do find him as a solo act a little on the bland side nowadays - and his autobiography didn't exactly endear himself to me. If it had been in the middle of the footy season I could have tied it in with a trip to the Emirates or one of the other London stadia. Needs more thought.

Sunday morning

Disappointing start to the day - the golf pro wasn't answering the phone but I thought I would go along anyway as I assumed we would be playing - albeit on a frozen and full winter course. Of course, it meant getting all togged up - thermals, extra sweaters etc - and I went over to the course only to find the Course Closed signs up.

Ah well, back to the house with the Sunday Times to get ready for a day in front of the box - the Nedbank Challenge from Sun City, then Hibs v Celtic followed by Everton - Villa. Hard times.

We had a takeaway Chinese meal last night - crispy duck was great but one of the main meals we shared was pork. This morning we woke up to the news that all Irish pork in the UK has had to be withdrawn from the UK due to a toxin they have discovered - oh dear.