08:00 Lois and I tumble out of the shower - unfortunately it's my turn to clean up in there today, which is like a whole work-out in itself: damn!!! Another rainy day is in prospect - non-stop rain till this evening - damn (again) !!!!!
09:00 The morning is taken up with dealing with a snafu by the delivery company delivering Lois's present to her nephew Ian's family in Oxford - what madness!
Lois ordered 3 games for Ian's children from Amazon - the first delivery of the games was cancelled by Amazon because one of the items was "unavailable". Lois re-ordered them, substituting something similar for the allegedly "unavailable" item, but this delivery never happened. When she checked up on the emails she had had from Amazon, she found out that the delivery company had "edited" the delivery address to a slightly different address somewhere else in the same general area.
What a crazy world we live in !!! Why wasn't the delivery address taken automatically from Lois's order and printed on an address label? If that had happened, there would have been no risk of a snafu with the delivery.
What madness!!!
one of the games Lois ordered - it looks to me like scrabble with banana pouches but I could be wrong! (although I don't think I am, I'm usually pretty smart at sussing out these things !!!!)
I will say that Amazon themselves checked and confirmed the delivery company's error pretty quickly, and they issued a refund without quibbling, which is nice.
It looks good, although we're disappointed that the Christmas cake hasn't got any icing on it - how can it be a Christmas cake without icing? - you tell me!!!
Cookshop's Christmas cake - but why no icing? I think we should be told!
later in the day, Lois showcases her fresh marzipan,
now covering the disappointedly un-iced cake.
It's six years since we last had a Christmas day completely on our own. We were recovering from an incredibly virulent tummy bug at the time.
flashback to 2014 - the last time we spent Christmas on our own
15:00 I look at my smartphone, and I see that Alison, our daughter who lives in Haslemere, Surrey, with Ed and their 3 children, earlier today posted a charming picture of the family's two cats up on Instagram.
Dumbledore, the Danish ex-alley-cat (behind carrier bag) and
Otto, the English kitten (foreground), eye the family's Christmas tree and wrapping paper
Alison comments that she was meant to be enjoying a peaceful coffee before her 3 children started arriving home at lunchtime for the holidays, but actually what she had to do was to prevent these two rascals from destroying, or eating, the Christmas wrapping paper under the tree.
That just about says it all for the crazy world of cats, doesn't it. But we love them !!!!
16:00 We have a cup of tea and a slice of bread and butter and quince jam on the sofa. I look at my smart phone and scan the Danish news media. And I see that Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the former Danish prime minister, has completed his 21-day journey sailing across the Atlantic with a crew of celebrity non-sailors - for a new Danish TV reality series.
Journalists (ekstrabladet) interviewed him on his arrival at St Maarten in the Caribbean, where he confirmed that he feels that his political party "Venstre", a centre-right liberal party, "no longer needs him", even though he refuses to say what his future plans are. The journey across the Atlantic was supposed to clear his mind of distractions, but Lois and I both feel he wouldn't have had that much time to reflect - sailing a small boat across the Atlantic as one of a bunch of non-sailors would have been a full-time activity: no doubt about that!
Løkke (left) getting into a golf buggy with his wife Solrun, on arrival in St Maarten
We're glad that Løkke made it across okay anyway. Lois and I have taken a keen interest in Løkke's career ever since he shook our hand in the middle of Copenhagen during the 2015 General Election campaign that swept him to power.
We feel that in 2015 it was definitely us that set Løkke on the road to success, and we're hoping to meet up with him again in the future - things have not been so good for him recently, and we'll try to set him on the right path again!
flashback to Denmark's general election campaign in June 2015 - Lois (left)
turns her head as Løkke's entourage of cameramen, supporters, flags
and demonstrators approaches in the distance
Lars Løkke Rasmussen (right) prepares his right hand, and seconds later
he comes across to shake mine and Lois's right hands (separately) in central Copenhagen
he was shaking hands with British PM, David Cameron
Løkke shakes Donald Trump's hand in Washington DC
One slightly sour note - David Cameron then went on to lose the Brexit referendum in 2016, and Donald Trump went on to lose the presidency to Joe Biden in 2020. Was Løkke to blame for these upsets? Well, it's possible, but Lois and I are not sure. So the jury's still out on all that - we'll have to see!
20:00 We settle down on the sofa and listen a bit to the radio, this week's instalment of "Last Word". Lois and I like to hear this programme every week if we can, to see if anybody's died or not in the last week or so - usually it's only 4 or 5 people, so not too bad!
David Cornwell, better known under his nom-de-plume as John le Carré, has died unfortunately, aged 89. He is known for writing several spy novels, a bit darker, less glamorous, and more realistic than most books in this genre - compared to Ian Fleming's James Bond series for instance.
John le Carré, author of spy novels, who has died aged 89
Before he became a writer, Cornwell worked first in MI5, and later, and for much longer, in MI6, so he knew the right lingo to use in his dialogues. But he also coined his own expressions, some of which were later taken up by the real MI5 and MI6. Really, what a crazy world we live in !!!
e.g. "The Circus" - i.e. MI6
"pavement artists" - i.e. MI6 agents who followed target individuals in public
"lamplighters" - i.e. the Hungarian emigré-led section of MI6 responsible for wire-tapping
"the cousins" i.e. the Americans
"the opposition" i.e. MI5
What madness !!!!
The term "mole" meaning an agent who buries deep within a target enemy organisation had been used before Le Carré, but it was Le Carré who popularized it and made it into a widely used term in society in general.
Fascinating stuff!!!!
21:00 We switch off the radio and watch some TV, the year's last edition of "Have I Got News For You", the comedy news quiz.
It's nice to see the show's opening titles again, with their symbolically iconic cartoon of the UK breaking away from the Continent and the Irish Republic and drifting slowly away to the north west - how poetic!!! And I hope Iceland are ready for us haha!!!!!
It's nice also to be reminded not only about the year's big stories - Brexit, the pandemic, the US Elections etc - but also about some of the year's lighter news items.
22:00 Enough said. We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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