Yes, dear Reader, are YOUR Christmas preparations "hotting up"? I bet they are, now it's "officially" December! [You're a couple of days late with that one, Colin, somewhat typically! - Ed]
And the omens are good that it's going to be a "bumper" holiday season, at least locally this year, judging from the newsflashes in this morning's Onion News (Local West Worcestershire) print edition, which "plopped" through mine and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois's letterbox this morning.
Have you checked YOURS yet? If not, just feast your eyes on these "doozies" from the medium-to-back pages! Here's just a couple, to whet your appetite....
It's winners and losers time, though, isn't it. And I suspect Dave Bradbury, popular manager of the Worcester branch of Greggs, the UK's premier medium-to-fast food outlet, must be tearing his hair out this morning over that particular piece of news, that's for sure!
Poor Dave !!!
[That's enough Onion News stories! - Ed]
Well, it's December 2nd, and Lois and I are very much in "Christmassy" mood as we shop in our local Barnard's Green charity shops for Christmas cards, and - with an eye on our "post-Christmas" future - dropping in at prestigious local key-copiers Elite Services to get extra keys to our new-build home here in Malvern Rise, Worcestershire.
"Elite Services" - Barnard Green's premier key-cutting market-leader,
where Lois and I drop in this morning to get some extra house-keys made
"Why do you need 3 extra keys to your house, Colin?", I hear you cry. [Not me - I've already lost interest and disappeared for my tea-break! - Ed]
Well, seeing as how you're obviously "gagging" to know the answer (!), here's our back-story coming up - fasten your seatbelts !!!!
The thing is this.....As we're both 78 and becoming "increasingly decrepit" and "a danger to themselves, let alone to the community", according to some of our reviews in TripAdvisor (!), we're planning to move to a house in Liphook, Hampshire to be nearer our daughter Alison and family, so that they can do little jobs for us, like picking up our post from the doormat if we can't quite reach it (only joking, guys!!!!).
flashback to December 2nd last year: exactly one year ago,
my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me,
dubbed "increasingly decrepit" by TripAdviser
We plan to leave our current house in the care of local estate-agents to market for us, when we "bugger off" to Liphook after Christmas: hence the need for getting extra house-keys. See? It's all beginning to make a crazy kind of sense, now, isn't it (!). [You can say that again! - Ed]
Think back to last year: remember those reviews?!!!
14:00 We come home and have lunch. Then we go to bed for "nap-time", but we have to "rush it" again this afternoon, which is a pity - what a crazy world we live in !!! You see, we need to go downstairs around 3 pm and make a start on our overseas Christmas cards: USA (3), Australia (3), Hungary (4), France (2). Weirdly, Royal Mail say it's cheaper to post cards to the USA than to any country in the world: £2.60 instead of £2.80 for everywhere else.
And as usual we forget that Ireland is now a foreign country. I've got a cousin Richard who lives in Dublin, so we'll have to get up early tomorrow to do Richard's card. Damn!!!
me showcasing our Christmas 2024 overseas cards:
as usual we forget that Ireland is now "foreign",
and I have to get up early next day to do my cousin Richard's
newspaper headline from 1922
With hindsight I think we were both lulled into a belief that as Ireland was retaining a British Governor-General, Tim Healy, that "things would work out all right for both countries in the end", and that the cracks would somehow all get "smoothed over".
[Exactly how old are you, Colin? - Ed]
Nevertheless cheaper to send a card to the USA than to our Irish neighbours only 20 miles away from us, across the Irish Sea? Surely not!
What a crazy world we live in !!!!
Luckily, however, our mood is lightened by the arrival of more of those amusing Venn diagrams, that Steve, our American brother-in-law, monitors for us on a weekly basis from the Internet.
And that third diagram "items in my bathroom cabinet" particularly resonates with Lois and me, because we still haven't got rid of medications inherited from our parents (and even probably grandparents I shouldn't wonder (!)). You can't just put these old packets of "laudanoid" (best by January 1928 (!) etc) in your "wheelie bin" nowadays, can you. You have to take them into a chemist's, "so that they can dispose of them safely", allegedly.
a typical bottle of laudanoid pills - "best by January 1928"
Should we take those old packets of "laudanoid" pills to the next Antiques Road Show perhaps, to be discussed and maybe valued by experts in the field? Dear reader, your thoughts please - postcards only, as always! What madness !!!
So, all in all, what a day we've had. On the plus side, Lois and I have at least "dipped our toes in the water as regards this year's Christmas card mailings.
And all that licking (of envelopes, obviously, in case you're wondering!) has at least saved us from contracting this year's top new illness; "brain rot", which Steve tells us is defined as follows:
[You've done that one once too often today. Now go to bed THIS MINUTE, or I'll have to "up" your medication again! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!!!
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