Least said, soonest mended.
Or ended.
At least this week at work drew to a close yesterday. That's all I'll say on that one. I can be very thankful that trading hours here are nothing like the ones I've worked in past years - nobody likes working until midnight on Christmas Eve, having Christmas off and then working from 5am-8pm on Boxing Day.
I don't go back until Tuesday, and then on Saturday I'm (sadly) finished at Marks for the time being. I'll be happy to go back someday, and hopefully I'll be successful when I apply for the graduate program there.
Today has been spectacular. We camped out in the living room in the hopes we'd see Santa, but I was so zonked from work that I passed out shortly after midnight on top of Julie's arm, so we slept through until she couldn't stand any more at 9am. We exchanged tons of presents and taught Maggie how to open presents.
Poor Maggie. I don't know if she's ever had a proper Christmas, and her last Christmas was in those disgusting kennels she'd been dumped at. Julie managed to get a pack of pork liver reduced to 30p whilst picking up a few bits yesterday and cooked it up for her, and we gave her a bit of stuffing and parsnips, as well. For the last week, I've been squealing, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" at her and giving her a cookie, so now whenever I say it she gets all excited. I love my dear hairy hippo.
She's lying bloated on the floor at my feet, sleeping soundly apart from the occasional burp. Julie's monopolising the couch, napping, and I'm taking time to update and keeping half an eye on a new version of La Boheme I've been dying to see (with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon.)
Our tree is the best. Jude and Chris gave it to us. Chris takes all the trees home from his school over Christmas and distributes them to people, so I came home from work early this week to find it set up and decorated! All our cards are stuck to the wall above the mantle, and the kitchen is a tip, but we'll clean it after our post-lunch lie-around-and-gurgle time.
Oh, lunch... it was awesome. It was mostly purchased by me during the waste sale at work, so you can walk off with some pretty posh Marks food for next to nothing. We had duck breast in cherry and red wine sauce; tenderstem broccoli, carrots and sugar snap peas; fresh sprouts; roast potatoes and parsnip; leek, sausage and wholegrain bread stuffing; Yorkshire puddings. We have leftovers of everything but the duck and sauce, so we'll serve that for lunch tomorrow with rack of lamb. I'm really going to miss how well we eat when I'm working at Marks, but hopefully we'll have it again someday.
Tomorrow we hope to see Ann and Sarah, and we'll take all of our dogs to the beach to see the charity football match, the raft races and the charity swims. Next year I'll be better organised and raise money to split between the crisis centre and the symphony and take the dip myself! :)
La Boheme is breaking my heart. I'm going to go immerse myself and go all runny for a little while.
Merry Christmas to all!
At least this week at work drew to a close yesterday. That's all I'll say on that one. I can be very thankful that trading hours here are nothing like the ones I've worked in past years - nobody likes working until midnight on Christmas Eve, having Christmas off and then working from 5am-8pm on Boxing Day.
I don't go back until Tuesday, and then on Saturday I'm (sadly) finished at Marks for the time being. I'll be happy to go back someday, and hopefully I'll be successful when I apply for the graduate program there.
Today has been spectacular. We camped out in the living room in the hopes we'd see Santa, but I was so zonked from work that I passed out shortly after midnight on top of Julie's arm, so we slept through until she couldn't stand any more at 9am. We exchanged tons of presents and taught Maggie how to open presents.
Poor Maggie. I don't know if she's ever had a proper Christmas, and her last Christmas was in those disgusting kennels she'd been dumped at. Julie managed to get a pack of pork liver reduced to 30p whilst picking up a few bits yesterday and cooked it up for her, and we gave her a bit of stuffing and parsnips, as well. For the last week, I've been squealing, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" at her and giving her a cookie, so now whenever I say it she gets all excited. I love my dear hairy hippo.
She's lying bloated on the floor at my feet, sleeping soundly apart from the occasional burp. Julie's monopolising the couch, napping, and I'm taking time to update and keeping half an eye on a new version of La Boheme I've been dying to see (with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon.)
Our tree is the best. Jude and Chris gave it to us. Chris takes all the trees home from his school over Christmas and distributes them to people, so I came home from work early this week to find it set up and decorated! All our cards are stuck to the wall above the mantle, and the kitchen is a tip, but we'll clean it after our post-lunch lie-around-and-gurgle time.
Oh, lunch... it was awesome. It was mostly purchased by me during the waste sale at work, so you can walk off with some pretty posh Marks food for next to nothing. We had duck breast in cherry and red wine sauce; tenderstem broccoli, carrots and sugar snap peas; fresh sprouts; roast potatoes and parsnip; leek, sausage and wholegrain bread stuffing; Yorkshire puddings. We have leftovers of everything but the duck and sauce, so we'll serve that for lunch tomorrow with rack of lamb. I'm really going to miss how well we eat when I'm working at Marks, but hopefully we'll have it again someday.
Tomorrow we hope to see Ann and Sarah, and we'll take all of our dogs to the beach to see the charity football match, the raft races and the charity swims. Next year I'll be better organised and raise money to split between the crisis centre and the symphony and take the dip myself! :)
La Boheme is breaking my heart. I'm going to go immerse myself and go all runny for a little while.
Merry Christmas to all!