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Suddenly it's almost Christmas
19 December 2017 21:48


One working day to go. I’m taking annual leave Thursday and Friday, and then the company closes until New Year.

It does seem a bit weird. It feels that all preparations have to be completed by Friday evening, but actually there is a whole weekend to go before Christmas Day.

Tomorrow we’re going to our final group Christmas meal, and as I’m neither driving nor working the following day I can have a few pints. Thursday evening we’ve got our final community choir rehearsal, and then meeting a friend for a pre-Christmas drink and present exchange.

Friday, I need to come back to Smalltown as the Christmas food is being delivered. And at some point we need to get the final Christmas shopping done.

Did I tell you we joined a Christmas community choir? It’s just a one-off, to sing a couple of songs at the church carol service on Christmas Eve. We also performed at another local church last weekend. The audience seemed to appreciate our efforts, and it’s been good fun being part of a choir – I’ve never sung in a choir before.

The ice skating trip went well and neither of the younglings fell over. Of course, this could be because neither of the younglings let go of the barrier for long enough to fall over! But they enjoyed themselves. We watched them do a couple of circuits (ten minutes each) then went off into the city centre to do some shopping, returning just before the session finished. CS3’s friend said that it was the sort of thing that her dad would enjoy, and it did look fun – maybe I’ll give it a go next year.

We took the train to Winchester; a group fare for the four of us (now the younglings are old enough to need an adult ticket) was just over £10 – it’s not worth driving for that price. When I was young, adult fares were charged at age 14 – a remnant of when the school leaving age had been 14. Only took about 50 years for rail companies to realise it had been raised to 16. Maybe in another 50 years they will realise it is now 18.

When we got back to Eastleigh we gave the younglings some money to go to the ice cream parlour. Gave them the opportunity to do something on their own, without adults in tow. More importantly, it gave us a few minutes to rest and recuperate!

Sunday afternoon, The Future Mrs Barefoot and CS3 were out at a martial arts session which gave me three hours to do exactly what I wanted. Except I was left with a shopping list, a housework list, and instructions to have dinner ready when they got back.

I’m being unfair. The only instruction was to have dinner ready when they got back – but that’s because we were going out to the carol service within an hour. This also involved shopping for dinner, and while I was there, to buy more Christmas cards and wrapping paper. The housework side I did voluntarily (I don’t help with the housework; I do my share of the housework).

I did it too – cup of tea ready as The Future Mrs Barefoot walked thought the door, and dinner on the table ten minutes later. Stew, btw, on the basis that this would be easy to heat up later if we didn’t have time to eat before going out.

Have a good Christmas everyone, and I hope Santa bring you want you want – or failing that, what you need.

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