New Year’s Eve

New Year’s Eve started with the belated exchange of Christmas presents with the daughters, including the receipt of camel hair socks and yak wool leggings from Mongolia and equally acceptable if more conventional clothing from Nottingham; the evening was devoted to a murder mystery game over a three course dinner for which younger daughter and partner prepared a starter of skewered chicken satay, my wife and I cooked a couple of curries for the main, and elder daughter and son whipped up a chocolate and hazelnut tart for dessert - and as for the murder, who did it or guessed it right were less important than the vamped up costumes and the variable accents.

Full House

With elder daughter tonight arriving home from Mongolia, via Aberdeen, we are at last reunited as a family over one of our favourite evening meals - lasagne followed by sticky toffee pudding – and as conversation flowed it soon felt like no one had ever been away; with beds and bags stuffed everywhere the cottage is full up but it does now feel like Christmas has finally arrived in our house.

Walk in Park

A break in the weather coincided with the need to get outdoors so the family (up to five with the arrival yesterday of younger daughter and partner) took a short drive to Hardwick Country Park for a walk round the lake, a circuit done many times over the years but looking much smarter (and busier) than when we first used to come with welly-ed toddlers in tow; today Hudl came too and took a few photos, some without my active intervention, so among the panoramic views and family groups were several snaps of the path, the sky, strangers’ feet, and even the inside of my bag.

Late Delivery

Three days after Christmas it’s time to disperse the presents from their ‘show and tell’ pile to longer term homes – books to the shelves in the snug, CD to the rack there, chocolate orange to the treat box, and clothes to the wardrobe & drawers in the bedroom; those same drawers served well to stow away presents for my nearest and dearest, and as the tell-tale carrier bags still in there are cleared for disposal it transpires that one of them is not empty, and my wife’s present count is subsequently increased by one that’s better late than never.

Wind

After a couple of lazy days the plan today was to get some exercise and fresh air with a walk in the park but high winds and squally rain persisted into the afternoon, thankfully not as severe as elsewhere in the country with our structural damage limited to a wayward wheelie bin and the nesting box blown clean off the tree; as a compromise, when nipping to the supermarket, I pulled up in a corner of the car park and in the thirty second walk to the entrance received more fresh air than in the average five mile hike.

Hudl

Unwrapping a Hudl (Tesco’s value tablet) on Christmas Day means spending a good part of Boxing Day setting it up, becoming familiar with the features, downloading apps, and generally getting to grips with touch screen tablet technology; still a way to go, so for now blogger posting remains via the trusty familiar laptop.

Christmas Dinner

After a relaxing morning with my wife and son, opening presents, we headed over, late afternoon, to have dinner with my wife’s parents and sister, utilising my father-in-law’s huge, fully extended refectory dining table (which could seat half a monastery) and my mother-in-law’s roast dinner expertise, today producing the traditional turkey accompanied by sausages, pigs in blankets, stuffing (wet & dry), an assortment of vegetables (boiled & roast potatoes, mashed carrot & swede, cauliflower & broccoli in cheese sauce, sweetcorn, roast parsnips), and variety of sauces (bread, cranberry and gravy); plates were cleared (mine twice), then time was taken to exchange gifts, enabling room to be made for dessert - a choice of Christmas pudding or chocolate cheesecake.

Christmas Party

As has become a Christmas Eve tradition we were invited to a gathering at a friend’s for festive food and chat, and the food, being prepared by a farmer’s wife, is not only festive but wholesome and plentiful; as the night wears on the game of ‘empires’ is inevitably called and with over a dozen players trying to guess each other’s secret identity a game takes the best part of an hour, so four rounds later (without a win between us) it is close to midnight and time to thank our hosts for a pleasant evening and take our leave.

Christmas Shopping

Christmas shopping was rounded off today with three separate trips: first, solo, to Darlington to get those finishing touches to presents, somehow gathering 10 items into my small messenger bag in a couple of hours; second, again solo, to Bolams the butchers in Sedgefield to get some turkey, not a whole one as we are not at home on Christmas day, but just bits – a crown and a couple of legs – sufficient to satisfy the demand for sandwiches on Boxing day and later, and compact enough to fit in the already packed fridge; then in the evening to the supermarket to top up supplies, not solo this time, but with my wife wearing her Christmas pudding hoodie, I almost wished I was.

Christmas Market

To Barnard Castle to visit the Christmas Market in the grounds of the splendid Bowes Museum where four large marquees kept out the squally wind, rain and occasional snow, while housing a host of stalls selling crafts, cloths, jewellery, food and drink, and just three days before the big day it was convenient to gather a few gourmet items for presents or personal consumption – cheeses, pies, puddings, ginger wine, specialist sausages and scones soon disappeared into the shopping bags, with smaller morsels similarly disappearing into the boy’s mouth as he grazed on the offered samples; by the time we’d wandered round and walked back to the town we were a bit cold and hungry so repaired to the excellent Clarendon Tea Shop for coffee, hot chocolate and paninis.

Christmas Telly

The bumper two-week Christmas edition of Radio Times operates from today and in time-honoured tradition I took my multi-coloured biros to it and highlighted the unmissables on my (subscription-free only) channels – green for sport, red for films and purple for the rest – but there was no danger of running out of ink as page after page was turned with mounting disappointment, not so much at the lack of quality but with the plethora of same-old, same-old that I’ve seen too many times to sit through again; what was circled was all the sport, a few sit-coms (Miranda, Vicious, Still Open All Hours), some drama (Sherlock, The Tractate Middoth, Death Comes to Pemberley, and of course Downton), and a few films that either I can watch every time (It’s a Wonderful Life, Kind Hearts and Coronets, and Love Actually) or that I have previously avoided so as not to spoil the book, but having read this year can now view for the first time (Never Let Me Go, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and believe it or not, Gone With The Wind).

Christmas Holidays

As schools finished for Christmas my wife and son came home with beaming smiles and, in my wife’s case, with a bag full of cards and presents from appreciative children and/or parents; also closing today for the holidays was the library where I called in to renew a book, only to find a spread laid on of home-made ginger wine, mince pies and shortbread, to which the cheery librarian invited all to help themselves while exhorting us to load up with enough books to last to the re-opening in the new year – no need in my case as I’ve got enough unread books on my shelf and my kindle to see me through to 2015!

Christmas Carols

Carols around the Christmas tree on the village green are good fun provided I go properly equipped, and over the years I have variously turned up without sufficient warm clothing, without a torch to illuminate the song sheet, or without my glasses to read the words on the illuminated song sheet; tonight I thought I had the lot and was able to join in with gusto (and the local brass band), until the collection came round when I found myself penniless and had to rely on my wife to bail us out with some small change.

Interference

After a pleasant man and wife day out doing some shopping, I prepared myself for the last gym session before Christmas, gathering bits of kit from here and there, including hauling my shorts out of the ironing basket, hampered by my wife, still in playful mood, running interference (as they say in American football), prodding me in the back and hurrying me up; eventually I got my kit on and only on arriving at the gym and mounting the treadmill did I realise I was wearing my short pyjama bottoms which, although the same navy with pale blue trim, were unlikely to fool the other, more professionally attired, users but I toughed it out consoled by the thought that at least I would be ready for bed before them.

Christmas Cards

Day two of the pre-Christmas week and the focus is on getting out the greetings cards that need posting, for me mainly to old (in both senses of the word) university mates and far flung family members, and I like to include a humorous message of personal relevance in the form of a caption to whatever stock image of snow, nativity or other seasonal scene is on the card; for example the card to my walking buddy Pete captions its picture of two shepherds, complete with staffs, gazing at the star of Bethlehem, with “Route finding was no problem during Pete and Alan’s ‘Holy Land’ walk”.

Christmas is Coming

It’s the last full week before Christmas and for me that signals a change of approach in preparing for the festivities, from opportunistic to planned, and after a morning checking stocks of cards, alcohol and purchased presents, lists were drawn up itemising needs and resources, identifying shortfalls in gin, vodka, stamps, ‘special’ cards and, inevitably, presents; so the priority for the afternoon was shopping for those relatively few gifts that fall to me (rather than my personal shopper – aka wife) to procure, and after a couple of hours a sufficiently good dent in the list had been made to call a halt and have a rewarding coffee and cake.

Duplo Devastation

What do you get when you bring home from a primary school six boxes of Duplo to sort into the correct container? – a scene on your living room floor that resembles Legoland after an earthquake, even more so when the sets being sorted include police, fire and ambulance; with little guide other than 20 years’ experience, enough progress was made to allocate most pieces correctly, but it helps if in the meantime the cats don’t take up residence in the empty boxes.

Darlo

Darlington FC’s recent roller coaster history can be summed up as: move to new stadium; reach League 2 play-offs; suffer administration; relegated to the Conference; win FA Trophy at Wembley; go bust & lose stadium; resurrected as Darlington 1883 in the Northern League; relocate to Bishop Auckland sharing Heritage Park with their landlords; win the Northern League at the first attempt; promoted to the Northern Premier League; and now an announcement of the plan to return to their home town next season to share Blackwell Meadows with the rugby club, but given their disappointment littered history they will need a fair wind and I lent my support today with my first trip to see them at Heritage Park where they scraped a 1-0 win in a scrappy wind-affected game.

Home Alone

With the other members of the household having social engagements tonight I was home alone, giving me free choice of the not very inspiring TV schedules, and I thought about Channel Five’s Abba night for a second or so before settling for some pre-recorded sport, with NFL ‘The Name of the Game’ (Giants at the Redskins); though with neither team in contention for the play-offs it was definitely not a case of ‘The Winner Takes It All’.

Weighty Agenda

A good portion of the day was spent ploughing through the papers for tomorrow’s termly meeting of the school governing body which, at 297 pages weighing 720g (1lb 9oz in old money), resembles a decent novel in length if not in entertainment value, although it is all good stuff that needs to be shared, understood and in some cases approved by the assembled volunteers who each have responsibilities as governor, director and trustee; in mitigation I had already gone through 94 pages for Finance Committee, but on the other hand there are 3 items to be tabled (all for information) that were not posted due to their size(!), presumably for fear of legal claims by posties with strained backs, so the final reckoning could bump up the page count from novel to epic, and the weight from not quite a bag of sugar to well over a bag of flour.

Showstopper

The boy’s after school cookery classes, taken to acquire a new skill as part of the Duke of Edinburgh programme, concluded today with what the Great British Bake-off would term a showstopper finale in the shape of a gingerbread house, structurally sound and decorated with a neatness and attention to detail never previously displayed in his 15 years; overall the course has been a great success, providing at least five Wednesday night meals, several tasty cakes and only one disaster, and preparing him for feeding himself better in these last ten weeks than in the previous 3 years of “food technology” lessons.

Redundant Technology

The latest TV advert to irritate me is the one that slowly zooms in on a pencil laid on its side on a desk as in the background all sorts of positive images are projected of busy, creative, successful (and obviously attractive) people being busy, creative and successful, while the suave voice-over man waxes lyrical about how this fantastic object has enabled mankind to do so many wonderful things, and just as you are thinking “yes aren’t pencils brilliant” the camera angle changes to reveal the latest super-thin tablet hidden behind; the implication – this tablet is marvellous it can do everything a pencil can do – is a bit underwhelming so I think I’ll stick with a pencil and keep my £400, after all it is the idea, thought or message that counts not the medium.

Front of House

“Just tidy up the front of the house” was my wife’s parting comment as she left for work this morning, and compliance required raking up two bags of leaves that had clearly travelled forward in time from when there were still some left to fall off the trees, and cleaning the windows with the hosepipe while simultaneously taking a cold shower; the resulting effect was somewhat spoiled by my parked car, mud encrusted up to a height of 1 metre so, with a hosepipe and bucket of soapy water to hand, the bottom half got a quick cat-lick sufficient to get it to a similar hue to the top half, and so complete the presentation of a respectable front of house.

Baubles

The second Sunday in December sees the Christmas tree erected and the decorations loaded on, in record time, as out of the storage boxes were selected this year’s colour scheme of blue and gold, supplemented as ever by a hotchpotch of those hardy perennials accumulated over the years as a result of three influences: first, when the kids were small we each chose a new decoration each year, building competing armies of tat, led in my case by the jolly snowman; second, a tendency to acquire souvenir baubles from trips such as to Disney, Harrods and, this summer, the Guinness brewery; and third, my wife’s recently home-crafted additions of variable verisimilitude but indisputable character, such as the tubby gingerbread man.

Quiz Night

At the local cricket club the end of the season means the start of monthly quiz nights but tonight our normal team of six was a couple down; however the four remaining put up a good show finishing fifth equal out of ten, earning a rare share of the cash, and we even scooped a raffle prize that will ensure refreshing showers for a week or two.

Punctured

The week began with one car ‘exhausted’ and finished with the other one ‘tyred’ as my plans to get my chores and errands completed and out of the way in advance of the football World Cup draw were jeopardised by a flat tyre; fortunately, once re-inflated it got me to the repair shop where they extracted the offending nail, plugged the hole, and got me back on the road with minimal cost and delay, enabling me to do at least the essentials and get back in front of the TV in time to see England’s world cup hopes also punctured by inclusion in a group with Uruguay and Italy.

Accountability

An important part of the role of school governor, particularly of an academy, is to ensure accountability to the community and one obvious element of this is the production of audited final accounts that set out how the funding has been used for the benefit of the pupils; today’s finance committee perused the draft statutory accounts with gritty bemusement as compliance with both government guidance and charity accounting standards leads to production of a mass of information analysed every which way, but seeing the wood for the impenetrable forest is a challenge even for me as a seasoned bean-counter - if it’s accountable only to accountants where’s the accountability?

Backdrop

Spent the morning as (unpaid) apprentice teaching assistant at my wife’s primary school helping her put up a backdrop to the stage where the younger children will perform ‘Christmas Around the World’ to their parents and the rest of the school; the black background (weed barrier sheeting) went up well, the stick up lettering less so as they regularly fell like leaves off an autumn tree, the silver stars however stayed in the firmament, and the strung out flags of the world looked good, although after downloading, printing and enlarging several times the alignment of some may be awry and could cause an international incident if any French, German or Italians turn up.

Menagerie

My car dashboard is adorned by a bit of a menagerie that began with Chip the nodding tortoise, acquired circa 1995 from Chester Zoo souvenir shop, and augmented over the years as various other natural history attractions were visited – Kevin the snake from Jersey Zoo is coiled round the rear view mirror, Spud the spider monkey (provenance forgotten) lounges in the quarter-light, and a salamander (Dordogne) and frog (Menorca) are tethered just above the hi-fi controls; with December arriving a festive addition has been made in the form of a robin, to be named Raby, from where, in a moment of pre-Christmas excess, he was purchased on Saturday.

Smart Driver

The Smart needing (prematurely in our view) a new exhaust, my wife took my car to get to work leaving me to get behind the wheel of the dodgem car for the first time for a couple of years, requiring a quick refresher with the manual, before roaring (literally) down the road, apparently in semi rather than full automatic mode, but soon having great fun changing gear with the paddles on the steering wheel; at the garage I was treated to a complimentary coffee as I waited for the diagnosis but given the cost of the repair it didn’t feel like much of a freebie.

Pies

An interesting conjunction of pies in the last 24 hours: my supper last night was a wolf pie obtained at the Raby food festival, after being reassured by the Moody Baker (it’s his business name not a personal observation) ‘that no wolves were harmed in the making of this product’, it being named after the ale so deliciously combined with steak, potato and peas, all encased in a tasty pastry case; today’s dinner was also misleadingly named, my homemade shepherds’ pie containing neither shepherd nor sheep, but in its own simple way was equally scrummy as testified by the clean plates with the leftover portion reserved for someone’s lunch tomorrow.