Self-Catering

New Year’s Eve in the Nurses’ Residence (my temporary self-catered accommodation at the hospital) was not as exciting as you may have expected, and the catering experience was mixed with the breakfast working well (thanks to plentiful supplies of cereal, milk, bread (and toaster), butter, jam, tea & coffee) but the evening meal more challenging as my attempt to microwave a Sainsbury’s ‘ready meal’ was hampered by my lack of experience in such culinary arts and the presence only of instructions for an alternative appliance, which meant all I could get it to do was a thirty second blast, of which twelve were needed, each terminated by four loud beeps that got more annoying with each repetition well before the forty-eighth and final one; on the plus side the lasagne was very tasty, washed down with a single can of Newcastle Brown, appropriate to see in the new year in such solitary fashion.

Journey South

My trip to Birmingham to be on hand for my Dad’s hospitalisation got off to an inauspicious start when I ground to a halt after eleven miles (189 to go) just past Scotch Corner on the A1(M) due to a nine vehicle collision just ahead, which caused a two hour standstill (of the proper engine off, get out and stroll around the carriageway variety) made tolerable only by having a book on hand to pass the time, and by the thought that it was better to be delayed behind such an accident than to be part of it; once allowed to continue it was slow going through successive road works, staring through a salt-splattered windscreen into a setting sun, which made the onset of dusk positively welcome (less so the nightfall as my dirt-encrusted headlamps struggled to pierce the gloom) but eventually I arrived at the hospital having taken six and a half hours to cover the two hundred miles.

Death of a Pirate (& Parrot)

A murder mystery dinner on a buccaneering theme required a pirate outfit, so rather than hire from a local costumier (cost £20), I combined my wedding shirt from 1997 with my sons pyjamas tucked into my football socks that last saw action circa 2004, stuck silver foil buckles on my shoes with paper clips, and purchased a “light and sound enhanced” cutlass (cost £2.99); it was a good night and while the murder of Captain Kidd went unsolved there was no mystery over the demise of my inflatable parrot – punctured by the fangs of the host’s dog!

Chilly & Chilli

A bright and frosty day made for an invigorating but chilly walk, necessitating a first public outing for the Christmas jumper, around Hardwick Park, where the highlight was seeing an unleashed, undersized puppy change instantly from a yappy chaser of mallards, moorhens and coots into a cowering mutt as a swan came a-hissing; back home in time to help cook up a chilli for the visiting in-laws, and no catering cock-ups today, just a perfect dish with rice, wraps, dips and garlic bread.

Legless

Each Christmas I manage to undermine our hosted feast with a catering faux pas (cock-up in English): last year it was composting the prepared veg instead of the peelings, and today the four turkey legs, bought to accompany the turkey crown, turned out to have an eat by date of Christmas Eve and so had to go into the bin rather than the oven; we still had enough meat (a ham was also prepared) so no real harm was done other than to my already compromised reputation as a host.

Monopoly

On Boxing Day an old favourite came out of the box – Monopoly – but not as I remember it from my youth, rather the ‘World Cup’ version with the properties replaced by national teams, the houses by terraces, and hotels by stadiums, however the layout, colour groups and rents remained unchanged so I could still rattle some rents off even after all these years: £2 for Old Kent Road (here Australia), £50 for Mayfair (Brazil), and a few more in between; starting sixth out of six was a struggle but I managed to acquire the light blues (here South Korea, Tunisia and Poland) and put up stadiums, but they are not big earners and come the final reckoning (after about three hours) my assets were insufficient to win. 

Christmas Presents

We are fortunate enough to be able to give and receive multiple presents within the family, so despite being one down (with younger daughter not visiting until Boxing Day) it still took a good hour for the four of us to unwrap, admire and appreciate our presents this morning; some hours later we decamped to the parents-in-law and after a Christmas dinner of epic proportions we settled into easy chairs for another hour long bout of pass the parcel - but the best thing I received there was a text to say the presents posted only on the 23 December to my sister and her family in Cornwall, had arrived in time.

Lasting Traditions

Though times change I maintain a couple of lasting Christmas Eve traditions: a last jaunt round the shops, not panic buying but seeking opportunistic stocking fillers (and one really hit the mark for my sewing obsessed chocoholic wife); and spending the evening with friends, whose buffet spread is as splendid as you would expect in a farmhouse, always followed by games of 'empires' where the aim of being last to have a secret identity guessed, one one round, I narrowly missed.

Xmas Food Shop

Sharing the offspring with an increasing number of interested parties means our festive feast does not take place until 27 December, but we still needed to shop today to be certain of getting what we need, so the first stop was Bolam's in Sedgefield for meat and veg, primarily a four-legged Turkey (not a freak but separate crown and legs that are so much easier to accommodate in the fridge for four days), where despite the crowds we got in, got round and got out by 10:30; second stop was a tactically late supermarket swoop on Morrison's at 20:30, which was successful in avoiding the crowds but hampered by many shelves being stripped bare by earlier rampaging hordes, requiring a third stop at Asda at 21:50 where the gaps were largely plugged, so that even if we didn't have everything we certainly had more than enough - in fact the only way to get it all in the fridge was to eat a sticky toffee pudding for supper.

Sofa Sumo

One of my least favourite household chores (undertaken as a pre-Christmas necessity today) is maintaining the two sofas in the living room, which requires not only a thorough vacuuming to remove debris from snacks, cats and crafts but also a good pummeling of the seat cushions to persuade the flock filling to return from the edges back to the centre where it could actually fulfill its purpose in life; it's quite a workout, resembling a cross between a fight in the schoolyard and a sumo wrestling bout - the former due to the violent thumping involved, and the latter due to the occasional need to shed clothing to cope with the exertion.

Home for Christmas

No skyping Mongolia this morning, instead an early morning drive to Manchester Airport to pick up the elder daughter, home for Christmas after a thirty hour journey with stops in Kyrgyzstan and Turkey; after that an hour's diversion to visit her Grandad was a bit of an ask, but agreed to with good grace.

Christmas Market

We made our traditional pre-Christmas visit to the Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle for the festive market, split fifty-fifty between crafts and food; we looked at the crafts but bought the food, particularly cheeses, pies and curries.

No Office Party

There was no early sign of the newly coined ‘Black-eye Friday’ in Yarm this lunchtime as I met two other retired gentlefolk, with whom I used to share an office (or at least a ‘pod’ of desks) for what I termed an office party for those who no longer have an office; the two course meal was excellent and the conversation was convivial as we caught up on news and regurgitated favourite working memories (the former finally, after a few years, becoming more prevalent and interesting than the latter), which kept us occupied for two and a half hours until the more heavy duty office parties moved in, and we, as befitted our status, moved out.

The Working Year

Christmas is coming and New Year is not far behind, bringing for me an irresistible need to review aspects of the year, and having today done my last shift of 2014, I can reflect on a varied working year undertaking four part time jobs – maths tutor, maths mentor, accountancy consultant and minibus driver (surprisingly, if belatedly, similar to roles envisaged in the summer of 2011 as I contemplated imminent retirement while on our family holiday in the Dordogne); averaging about five hours a week it has been enough to add variety and purpose to post retirement, and has earned a pound or two to help fund the occasional post-retirement outing.

Cards

Every year the intention is to add some personalised content to the few Christmas cards I actually send, but as ever the need to get them in the post takes over, meaning that today it was again a case of just writing to and from in the cards, addressing and stamping the envelopes, and stuffing them into the pillar box.

Winter Walk

Decided to take advantage of still, sunny December day by taking a short walk along the route of the first passenger railway (not the complete Stockton to Darlington, just a few miles from Oak Tree to South Burden), delighting in the look of the blue sky through the bare branches overhead and the path striped by their shadows; it was spookily quiet, just a muted tweet or two from the birds, with the only other wildlife on view being dog walkers, a couple of horse riders, and a gaggle of WI types evidently dressed for their annual Santa walk - and then in South Burden Wood a glimpse of a fox who, on seeing me, retreated back into cover.

Standardisation

If you think that the answer to a maths question is clearly either right or wrong you would be surprised that three tutors marking copies of the same exam paper could come up with three different marks out of just 36; but at entry level 3 there are less marks for the answer than how it is arrived at, so lots of grey areas and hence the need for these standardisation sessions to ensure consistency of marking - and to ensure a consistent standard of bourbon biscuits.

Frogs

What does a teaching assistant give thirty of her charges for Christmas – thirty homemade bookmarks each consisting a green felt frog on a lollipop stick, which have been in production for some weeks but only reached completion today with a group session at the frog optician to affix their googly eyes – the result, en masse, is the stuff of nightmares.

The Priorymen

The need to see grass roots football after missing two weekends took me to the King George V Stadium in Guisborough to see the Priorymen make home advantage count, scoring four good goals without reply against Ashington; a home performance marred only by the failure of the tea hut to keep pace with the demand for hot drinks on an icy day.

51 States of Grey

For the second time this week I was home alone all day and most of the evening as both wife and son had after-school social engagements, so to help pass the time I decided to improve my quizzing skills by committing to memory the 51 States of America (the party trick that so frustrated Ross in Friends); I could already recall many of the peripheral states but those without a coastline or international border tended, in my mind, to form just an amorphous grey lump in the middle of the continent, however once a logical system had been devised I was able to remember them all – how long I retain the knowledge only time, and possibly a future quiz, will tell.

Returning to Learning

It's like waiting for a bus - having had no learner there for my last two classes, two turned up at once today (my regular and another lad not seen since September) requiring me to dust off the lesson plan and get down to some algebra; the occasional student disappeared after half an hour (he may wander back in off the street some time in March) but the regular completed the lesson and hopefully is back on track.

Winter Warmers

Adopted three ways to keep warm on a cold, wet, windy, winter’s day without resorting to putting the heating on: spend an hour and a half hunched over a nice hot iron until you run out of dry laundry; go to a nice warm café to meet an ex-colleague and make a cup of coffee and a scone last another ninety minutes while having a good catch-up; visit the gym and get a real good sweat on doing the rounds of the various instruments of torture.

Angels of the Hearth

We stripped back the hearth to its original brick a few years ago, at which point two angels, gifts hand crafted by my sister, lost their anchorages, were brought down to earth and have stood forlorn on the carpet since; but today I finally reaffixed them to the chimney breast and enabled them to take wing again.

Ironing Pile

You can tell it's been a quiet day when the highlight is a couple of hours ironing, but at least the tottering pile of creased laundry whose avalanche could have buried someone alive has been reduced to more stable proportions for the time being.

Christmas Countdown No. 4

The first weekend in December is when the Christmas tree goes up and the presence of the younger daughter on a well-timed visit meant my creative input was not needed; the result was a tree tastefully decorated by my wife and daughter and some mulled wine well-warmed by me.

Etihad

About once a season, courtesy of a generous season ticket holder, I get to the Etihad Stadium to see Manchester City play, and today the drive south was enlivened by commentary on Chelsea's defeat at Newcastle, which meant if City beat Everton they would close the gap at the top of the Premiership to three points; Aguero hobbling off after two minutes was a blow but a first half Yaya Toure penalty proved enough (along with a fine Joe Hart save) to secure a win, gain three points and put the pressure well and truly on Chelsea.

Final Accounts

My term of office as a school governor is approaching its natural end and at today’s meeting I relinquished my position as chair of the finance committee, after more years than is good to remember, but not before seeing our third (since becoming an academy), and my last, set of final accounts approved by the board.

Coming Soon

In picking up some tickets from the Civic Theatre in Darlington I also picked up the Newcastle Theatre Royal’s brochure for the Spring / Summer 2015 season, which includes adaptations of four good books (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Rebecca), a stage production of a classic film (Twelve Angry Men), and the perennial Oscar Wilde favourite ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ (given a twist with the casting of David Suchet as the formidable Lady Bracknell); some difficult choices to be made there with Rebecca and Twelve Angry Men looking favourite at this stage.

Windscreen Wounders

Having cleared the car windscreen of frost this morning I thought it just needed a sweep of the wipers this evening, but realised my mistake as the water from the washers froze on contact to form a film of ice that was going nowhere; I then committed my second error as my manual scraping was interrupted by a surprisingly powerful wiper arm following its intermittent pattern, which proved more effective in removing skin from my hand than removing ice from glass.

Bags of Ivy

A day spent at home catching up after being away last week, and one job that needed finishing off was bagging the ivy taken off the barn roof three weeks ago; four bags filled today plus two that the boy did for me topped up to capacity, to add to four done previously, gives me ten to squeeze into the Juke for transportation to the tip tomorrow.

Xmas Cometh No. 3

I can accept 1 December as a reasonable start for Christmas preparations, so today happily undertook three seasonal tasks: tracking down and buying a potentially tricky present (identity not revealed in case of prying eyes); tying tinsel loops on thirty baubles for my wife’s classroom Christmas tree; and, most bizarrely, acquiring a papier-mâché reindeer’s head (antlers and all) to be decorated by said wife and mounted on the wall to look down festively on our Christmas dining table.