26 December 2012 (Wednesday) - Boxing Day

I went to bed relatively early last night. "er indoors TM" did not have to be up for work this morning so she had a late night. When she came to bed at 2.45am she woke me, and I then lay awake for the rest of the night until finally giving up and getting up at 6am. I then spent a little while fussing the dog whilst watching "Smallville" on the SyFy channel. I've never watched a complete episode of that show; merely seeing snippets here and there. I really should make a point of watching the whole thing. It looks to be quite good. Certainly better than yesterday's "Doctor Who" - I'm still sulking about how rubbish that program was. Perhaps I should just stop watching it like so many others seem to be doing.

Originally I had been intended to work on Christmas Day this year and to be off today. Plans for today had involved going to Deal for the Boxing Day swim or going to Westfield for turkey curry with relatives. But a colleague wanted to take part in a Boxing Day road race today, and I didn't mind swapping shifts. After all, I'm always on the cadge for people to swap with me. And the weather turned out to be rather awful, so I couldn't really grumble.

I listened to the news as I drove to work this morning. The roads were very quiet, but then you would expect that. However, for all that it was Boxing Day, for many people today was billed as the busiest day of the year. Apparently there's more horse racing planned for today than at any other time, and also there are more hunts with dogs planned today than at any other time. For all that fox hunting with dogs has been banned for some time, hunts still go out.
Some hunts apparently chase a trail that's been laid for them, others continue to hunt illegally. There's apparently quite a rant from the hunting lobby that fox hunting with dogs is a good thing. I can't see it myself. If people and dogs like charging around then then that's fine by me *if* they can do so without making a nuisance of themselves. And if a fox is wreaking havoc with livestock, then one person can go quietly out with a shotgun. But as for traditional hunting.... Having a mob chasing a fox to exhaustion, and then allowing dogs to rip it to pieces is just plain barbaric.

And so back to work after a five day Christmas break. Other friends who are back to work today have intimated that they are rather miffed that a lot of friends and family don't go back for another week. There's no denying that I'd like to have done my own thing and gone with "er indoors TM" to visit family and to have had turkey curry.
But realistically I'm glad that I'm working whilst the weather is awful; I can have time off when the weather is better and/or when I choose to have it.

And in closing, Gerry Anderson died today...


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