Comfort and Joy
Well, it wasn't quite Christmas as we know it, but it was a damn sight better than last year.
My flatmate and I had a pre-Christmas on the 22nd, with festive pizza. I gave her a Pikachu Nintendo controller. She gave me a Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart action figure. We are grown adults with jobs.
The next day, the 23rd, I travelled down to Dorset to stay with Howard. On Christmas Eve we dropped round to deliver presents to callmemadam.
Christmas Day was my chance to do something new and exciting: a swim across Weymouth Harbour. It's a short splash and dash, equivalent to two or three lengths of a pool, and many participants elect to swim in fancy dress (I did not). Props to the guy in a reindeer costume, which must have been so soggy and heavy by the end!
After all this excitement I went home for an afternoon of present-opening, movies and a Christmas dinner consisting mainly of roast potatoes and pigs in blankets.
Not all Christmas traditions could be upheld but I did manage my customary Boxing Day coffee with kowarth, which also featured pancakes with pineapple and ice cream for mid-morning breakfast. Howard and I caught up with various friends in what we judged to be a safe and responsible manner, and also fitted in a trip to Beaulieu.
I have a huge soft spot for the motor museum, which still maintains its 'private collection of rich nobleman' feel. My visits are usually to see James Bond cars, and this time was no exception. From their No Time To Die exhibition I was most excited about the scooter from the Jamaica scene, and the folding glider that launches from the back of a C-17 Globemaster, the best view of the latter being obtained from the Beaulieu monorail.
Back to work today. But it felt like a proper Christmas break.
My flatmate and I had a pre-Christmas on the 22nd, with festive pizza. I gave her a Pikachu Nintendo controller. She gave me a Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart action figure. We are grown adults with jobs.
The next day, the 23rd, I travelled down to Dorset to stay with Howard. On Christmas Eve we dropped round to deliver presents to callmemadam.
Christmas Day was my chance to do something new and exciting: a swim across Weymouth Harbour. It's a short splash and dash, equivalent to two or three lengths of a pool, and many participants elect to swim in fancy dress (I did not). Props to the guy in a reindeer costume, which must have been so soggy and heavy by the end!
After all this excitement I went home for an afternoon of present-opening, movies and a Christmas dinner consisting mainly of roast potatoes and pigs in blankets.
Not all Christmas traditions could be upheld but I did manage my customary Boxing Day coffee with kowarth, which also featured pancakes with pineapple and ice cream for mid-morning breakfast. Howard and I caught up with various friends in what we judged to be a safe and responsible manner, and also fitted in a trip to Beaulieu.
I have a huge soft spot for the motor museum, which still maintains its 'private collection of rich nobleman' feel. My visits are usually to see James Bond cars, and this time was no exception. From their No Time To Die exhibition I was most excited about the scooter from the Jamaica scene, and the folding glider that launches from the back of a C-17 Globemaster, the best view of the latter being obtained from the Beaulieu monorail.
Back to work today. But it felt like a proper Christmas break.