Happy New Year!
Happy New Year, dear flist!
I am returned from the land of the south and west, and am back at work. It's a bit of a shock to the system, this getting up in the am business.
Christmas was... well... I spent it at Papa 'Bert's, with big sis, big bro and a selection of nieces and nephews. It was a grand affair with much nosh, much booze, much putting-the-world-to-rights, much snackfood, much watching of crazy people running into the sea for chariddy on Boxing Day, and some of the smelliest cheeses available to humanity. Hurrah!
Afterwards, I spent a night in Pz visiting the younger sibs - saw the new flat of Middle Liddle Sis, and the new flat and boyfriend of Lil Sis. We had a meadery extravaganza (it's all about the wooden plates and eating with your fingers) and then went to the pub to continue soaking our livers while telling each other how much we "fookin' luv yoo" in an inebriated manner. In the morning, we rose early to go and stuff fried nosh into our faces at a greasy spoon, and I got back to Dad's just in time to go to London for an Eve of the Eve party.
We stayed at the RAF Club (very posh) and ate of the set menu. We were promised Steak and Kidney pud, but we actually got Steak and Kidney pud surprise, the surprise being that it was in fact Chicken. When we toasted her great and glorious majesty Queen Victoria (Gawd Bless 'er) the toastmaster asked us to raise our glasses brimming with wine we'd ordered to go with food we didn't get :) A good evening of music hall shennanigans anyway, and Dad donated his raffle prize to me. Yay!
I then made the gruelling 10min trip to Brixton to spend NYE with kleesrosegarden at a party of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend in Hampstead. We got hijacked on the way by an Italian restauranter and his cheesy wares, which lined the stomach nicely for the boozing ahead. I talked shite to people I'd never met, sang Disney songs, risked life and limb climbing in and out of windows, got glow sticks stuck through my piercings, and danced to Chesney Hawkes. I also managed to fall over a perfectly flat bit of road on the way home. Pesky pavement.
The train home was delayed by a couple of hours shortly after we set off (signalling failures or sommat), but luckily I was in First Class, dahlings, so there was a plentiful supply of tea and biccies. However, it didn't leave me very long to unpack and repack to go to Wales to catch up with Mr 'Bert. (Missed him like a mislaid limb. A large... hairy... Welsh... limb... hmmm, as metaphors go, I guess that doesn't really work...)
Luckily I had yesterday off work to collect the mogs from kennels, wade through the post that had made getting through the front door rather complex, buy groceries, do laundry, and spend crimbo vouchers (more books? Oh go on then!). My planned slobbage didn't happen, but I did have scampi in a basket with Unusual Guru Wilbur instead, which was worth it, just to marvel at his new christmas cardie.
Holiday bookage (due to a rather long and irritating story, not as many books as I'd intended): Chuck Palahniuk's Lullaby and Invisible Monsters, Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, Tom Holt's You Don't have to be Evil to Work Here, but it Helps, Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, Terry Pratchett's Wintersmith, and Ben Illis' The Tale of the Town House and the Country Mouse: a Modern Retelling. Now Reading Tom Holt's Earth, Air, Fire and Custard, and Dita Von Teese's Burlesque/Fetish and the Art of the Teese.
And now I'm back to work with my annual dose of phlegm and complete loss of voice.
Quiet round 'ere, innit??
I am returned from the land of the south and west, and am back at work. It's a bit of a shock to the system, this getting up in the am business.
Christmas was... well... I spent it at Papa 'Bert's, with big sis, big bro and a selection of nieces and nephews. It was a grand affair with much nosh, much booze, much putting-the-world-to-rights, much snackfood, much watching of crazy people running into the sea for chariddy on Boxing Day, and some of the smelliest cheeses available to humanity. Hurrah!
Afterwards, I spent a night in Pz visiting the younger sibs - saw the new flat of Middle Liddle Sis, and the new flat and boyfriend of Lil Sis. We had a meadery extravaganza (it's all about the wooden plates and eating with your fingers) and then went to the pub to continue soaking our livers while telling each other how much we "fookin' luv yoo" in an inebriated manner. In the morning, we rose early to go and stuff fried nosh into our faces at a greasy spoon, and I got back to Dad's just in time to go to London for an Eve of the Eve party.
We stayed at the RAF Club (very posh) and ate of the set menu. We were promised Steak and Kidney pud, but we actually got Steak and Kidney pud surprise, the surprise being that it was in fact Chicken. When we toasted her great and glorious majesty Queen Victoria (Gawd Bless 'er) the toastmaster asked us to raise our glasses brimming with wine we'd ordered to go with food we didn't get :) A good evening of music hall shennanigans anyway, and Dad donated his raffle prize to me. Yay!
I then made the gruelling 10min trip to Brixton to spend NYE with kleesrosegarden at a party of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend in Hampstead. We got hijacked on the way by an Italian restauranter and his cheesy wares, which lined the stomach nicely for the boozing ahead. I talked shite to people I'd never met, sang Disney songs, risked life and limb climbing in and out of windows, got glow sticks stuck through my piercings, and danced to Chesney Hawkes. I also managed to fall over a perfectly flat bit of road on the way home. Pesky pavement.
The train home was delayed by a couple of hours shortly after we set off (signalling failures or sommat), but luckily I was in First Class, dahlings, so there was a plentiful supply of tea and biccies. However, it didn't leave me very long to unpack and repack to go to Wales to catch up with Mr 'Bert. (Missed him like a mislaid limb. A large... hairy... Welsh... limb... hmmm, as metaphors go, I guess that doesn't really work...)
Luckily I had yesterday off work to collect the mogs from kennels, wade through the post that had made getting through the front door rather complex, buy groceries, do laundry, and spend crimbo vouchers (more books? Oh go on then!). My planned slobbage didn't happen, but I did have scampi in a basket with Unusual Guru Wilbur instead, which was worth it, just to marvel at his new christmas cardie.
Holiday bookage (due to a rather long and irritating story, not as many books as I'd intended): Chuck Palahniuk's Lullaby and Invisible Monsters, Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, Tom Holt's You Don't have to be Evil to Work Here, but it Helps, Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, Terry Pratchett's Wintersmith, and Ben Illis' The Tale of the Town House and the Country Mouse: a Modern Retelling. Now Reading Tom Holt's Earth, Air, Fire and Custard, and Dita Von Teese's Burlesque/Fetish and the Art of the Teese.
And now I'm back to work with my annual dose of phlegm and complete loss of voice.
Quiet round 'ere, innit??