24 December 2018 (Christmas Eve) - Back In The Day


The dogs had a restless night last night, and consequently so did I. Apparently Treacle was sick shortly after I dozed off. "er indoors TM" cleared it up; I cleared that which Fudge brought up after having eaten far too much brekkie.

Over a little brekkie of my own I had a look at the Internet. It was still there. I didn’t get much of a look at it as treacle jumped on to the lap-top and tried to fight me. She does that from time to time. Presumably she’d recovered from whatever made her throw up in the night?
"er indoors TM" put Christmas collars on to the dogs. Fudge got his off within seconds (he *hated* it) and it wasn’t long before Pogo and Treacle were playing tug-o-war with it.

We got ourselves and the hounds organised and went for a little walk round the park. As we went up the road one of the local tramps was having a tiddle up the side of the church. A surfeit of special brew at half past nine? Well, it is Christmas.
We walked round Bowens field int the park. Although it wasn’t raining (such an improvement on yesterday) it was still very damp underfoot. As we walked Pogo picked a couple of fights. All with dogs on leads. He’s fine with other dogs all the time they aren’t on leads.

With walk walked we came home and I told the Internet about this year’s last instalment of the Lego Advent calendar, then got myself ready to set off in the general direction of work.
As I drove I didn't have the radio playing its usual brand of drivel. Instead I listened to a CD. "Mr Hankey's Christmas Classics" got me into quite the festive mood. Something which has been somewhat lacking for me this year. I sand along to all the old favourites as I drove up the motorway.

I soon got to work; the pre-Christmas buffet was in full flow. I scoffed myself silly. And then I did OK in the Secret Santa draw - a book about fishing, a slab of chocolate and a bottle of rather decent ale. Apparently I was one of the easier choices of people to have in the "Secret Santa" draw; one look at my Facebook feed told everyone that anything fishing-or beer- related would be appreciated. As would anything geocaching, but no one really knew what that was all about...

We had a rather busy day at work. As I worked I found myself reflecting on my first ever Christmas Eve at work; Christmas 1981. And all the Christmasses back in the day. For a few years, on Christmas Eve work stopped at mid-day and everyone but the boss went to the pub. The boss stayed behind and did what little work there was whilst we drank in the pub. I can remember being absolutely legless by half past twelve.  We would drink until about half past two when we would stagger back to work; arriving at three o'clock. Much the same time as the night shift (who would get in *very* early). The night shift would take over, and we would then drink a small glass of whiskey with the boss (pretending we liked it) until we all staggered off to our various homes just after four o'clock.
Things were very different back then. Today I was rather non-stop until the night shift arrived at nine o’clock.

I miss the old Christmas Eves at work…

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