My hip was playing up for much of the night, and somehow or other I’d convinced myself that an arthritic hip was actually appendicitis (dur!) When I wasn’t fretting about surgery over Christmas I was embroiled in a nightmare in which I’d been drafted into an amateur dramatic re-make of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat” in which I had been led to believe I would be playing the part of “Pharoah” but was actually “Fat Git”. I’d finally settled when “er indoors TM”’s alarm went off and my hip started aching again.
I got up and opened the last window of my Advent Calendar with something of a sense of relief. I do like making the story every year but it can be rather hard work at times. There’s no denying that this year’s hasn’t been as good as some of the previous efforts… but I’m already looking forward to next year’s one.
I made toast and had a look at the Internet.
Pretty much nothing at all had kicked off on Facebook overnight so I downloaded my bank statement and went through it accounting for every single penny I’d squandered over the last month. I’m mean like that… As always I am far from skint… just nowhere near as rich as I would like to be. But then, I suppose pretty much everyone can say that.
As I accounted my phone beeped; our Munzee clan had reached our target for this month which was something of a result…
We took the dogs round the park for a little walk. “er indoors TM” had a stroke of genius in which giving each dog a tennis ball to carry rather distracts them from what is going on around them. It seemed to work; we walked past several other dogs and had no episodes at all. Mind you all the other dog walkers seemed to be rather more relaxed than the usual ones we meet in the park, and a relaxed owner makes for a relaxed dog.
As we walked home “er indoors TM”’s phone beeped with a memory. A photo of Fudge from last Christmas which gave me a minor melt-down. For all that it is over eight months since he went, I still blub about him most days.
With walk walked we came home and had a cuppa and a croissant. “er indoors TM” put some “Christmas at the Albert Hall” thing on the telly in which various celebrities were singing the Christmas songs for which they became famous over twenty years ago. It was rather good to watch, but I found myself wondering just how much the thousands of people in the audience had paid to be there… and to get there.
Martin called round and we swapped pressies. It is ages since we last met up – I must organise some more get-togethers in the New Year.
“er indoors TM” then went off delivering Christmas pressies to family in Hastings. I went to bed and slept as well as I could between Treacle barking at absolutely nothing at all for much of the afternoon. I eventually got fed up with her woofing and set the washing machine loose on laundry as I watched a couple of episodes of “The Witcher” in which (for once) most people kept their clothes on.
It has to be said that this Christmas Eve has been rather dull. Many years ago Christmas Eve would be one big work-related booze-up when we would all leave the (now bulldozed) Royal East Sussex Hospital at eleven o’clock in the morning, go to French’s in Robertson and drink ourselves silly.
About twenty-five years ago I would work the night before Christmas Eve, have Christmas Eve off and spend it on a booze-up with my brother in Hastings before going for the last-minute shopping fight.
These days Christmas Eve is just a normal day at work; albeit a tad quiet. Or (like today) a day before work.
In the past Christmas Eve night would be watching dull telly prior to Midnight mass, or a party with friends. This Christmas Eve night is a night shift. I’ve worked the night shift on Christmas Eve before. They have been some of my busiest nights and some of my quietest.
No comments:
Post a Comment