Christmas Eve

Last night the streets were very quiet for a Saturday night.  Tonight however traffic flows as usual, possibly even more than usual as I suspect late last night families gathered while tonight last minute gatherings, preparation for late night church services, retrieving children from Christmas parties and the like force people onto the roads.  
In many homes the crinkling of trinkets and the rustling of paper, neatly parcelled by mum less so by dad is done in hushed tones in a vain effort to stop the brats from peeking in to see what is happening.  Their delusion of Santa long gone.
The delusion of Santa Claus, of if you are middle class Father Christmas, how did we get to this?  From where did we find the Christmas of dreary songs and 'magical extravagansa's' (@Blonde, bouncy TV girls everywhere), snowmen and reindeer?  It's a lie!
Can you imagine Mary and Joseph walking towards Bethlehem singing 'Jingle Bells?'  Picture the three men found on Christmas cards sitting on camels pointing towards a star, would they be singing 'Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow?'  I doubt it somehow.  Note also that such songs usually originate in 'tin pan alley' where the majority were penned by Jewish songwriters, Irving Berlin writing 'White Christmas' for instance.  Tinsel, Christmas trees, origins of the tree begins in eastern and central Europe where pagans once worshipped them, plastic snowmen on Australian beaches, inflatable reindeer in the middle east, flickering coloured lights all offering a 'Christmas feel,'  that special time of the year loved by so many but with nothing behind it bar sentiment and pap!
Bring back Cromwell I say!  Lets be done with all this peripheral nonsense and return to a proper Christmas.  May it be like every other day in this house, miserable!

My Christmas will be quiet especially as the cold I suffered so severely last month has gone to be replaced with a gentle every day cold the sweet lass at work passed on to me.  This limits my joy and ensures my remaining indoors for the next couple of days.  Having stocked up this is fine and not having to go out helps but it is irritating, mild though it is.  
The TV looks as poor as always tomorrow, one church service, Carols from Kings, and back to fifty channels of pap interspersed with kids films which no-one will be able to watch for the noise of the kids breaking things.  Radio 3 looks entertaining and Radio 4 might be passable although I suspect I will wish to have two programmes on at the same time!  Iplayer it is then.  
I will not be alone, the mouse has rummaged through a bin last night for something I foolishly threw in the wrong bin.  He might get a surprise tonight if I put the humane trap in their also.
The traffic is lessening, the kids must be home by now, gifts are being wrapped men warned that the wife/girlfriends gift had better be the right one, men are prepared for socks with vile designs and urged to enjoy mother in laws company again.  I know one man under orders not to accidentally kill any of his grandchildren, and not to take them walking with the dog and forget to bring them back like last time!  He might need the Single Malt whisky he will receive.

I hope your day is a good one and you remember the reason for the season.

Maybe...

Christmas Cat...

At Last, the Shortest Day.

For the past six months we have been waiting for this dreich but gladsome day, the shortest day of the year!  At last we know that Spring is coming and Summer is ahead.  Of course the day being dreich, cloud covers the land, we cannot see the sun rise or fall, indeed some cannot see anything in the gloom, but inwardly we rejoice as the nights now get shorter and minute by minute the warmth of Spring lies ahead with nothing in between but two months or more of rain, snow, ice, storm, hail and other regular events but nothing too much to surprise us.
I suspect many Druids of various types, alongside youthful trendy middle class types, have gathered at Stonehenge and other such henge's to see the winter solstice come and go and pretend they are living out ancient pagan rites even though nobody has a clue as to what ancient rites were all about.  The lack of knowledge will not stop them reaching out to something they see as enlightening, though the main result might just be chilblains and flu caused by the dank atmosphere.

I spent the morning at coffee with one of my women and then returned home to eat, sleep and send e-cards to those I canny be bothered writing cards to.  You know the type, those acquaintances who offer cards but you reckon it's easier to send an e-card and know they will not mind.  It took longer than I thought and the gloom outside made the world dark by four!  

 

Last Shift

That is the last shift at the museum for this year.
A day spent with a few visitors and a long list of photographs to search! 
For a future exhibition there is a need for suitable pictures and I was selected, no-one else around, to sit there scrolling through and clicking on hundreds of photos.  
I found four of aircraft (it was a local airfield we are researching) and millions of pictures of dinners, VIPs, awards, and a few personnel but rarely a suitable picture.  
When an airfield has existed since 1943 and seen a great deal of action during WW2 and later during the Cold War, it closed in the 90's, many aircraft and numerous men have passed through.  First the RAF and then the USAF of one sort or another have been there and enriched in every way the locale.
We often find US men returning with wives obtained while here.  Occasionally a man will remain in this country with his wife.  
A few decent pics of events, one or two of individuals who may be important, but not enough of aircraft.  I have found one or two other sites online that are better but copyright is always a problem there.
So now, unless I have to meet someone there I will be out of the museum for two weeks.  Closed over Christmas week but how will it survive without my input?  What?....oh!

As Christmas nears the news deadens as politicians run for home or overseas visits and major items that keep the media happy run out and minor events are blown out of proportion.  This means no more Brexit lies for a week or two, few tales of corrupt politicians and nothing concerning badly behaved attention seeking film/pop/tv celebrities filling the news.
It does however mean a TV filled with old films, programmes and assorted junk to watch if the TV means something to you.  Personally I will seek more on the radio but so far it does not sound too exciting, maybe this will change but I doubt it.
It's being so cheery that keeps me going!

 

Rejoice! Rejoice!

It has been a tiring couple of days.  Searching the town for cheap gifts, wandering for miles round in a circle, back to St Paul's for a great morning including Greek ginger Christmas treats, and then today wandering again round the shops before joining the merry crowd in Tesco, smiles abounding, at least from those heading for the door!
All this has been accompanied by the joy of watching the Heart of Midlothian do what they are meant to do, stuffing the Old Firm good and proper!  This half is the lesser of the evil twins, but not by much, and while they deservedly have made good use of the vast wealth they have it is clear the Heart of Midlothian are making much better use of the slender resources at our disposal.  This is why the victory is greater than it would have been in times past.
Scottish football was at its best in the 1950's and early 60's.  This is partly because the better players did not wander off into England as the £10 a week limit on wages still applied at the time, most were content to remain at home unless the English club could find a way round the wage limit by acquiring another job for the player, an old and well worn trick.  So when I started to watch football  e expected to beat everyone, and why not, they expected to beat us.  Sadly filthy lucre has ended those happy days and with SKY V pouring money into the feeble English game, and far too little into the Scots one, a disparity has arisen.  Add to this the Rangers chairman and his tax dodging friends hugely increasing costs and running away, supported by the Glasgow media, we now see Scots football recovering slowly from the bad taste of recent days.
So enjoyment is complete when one half of the evil twins lose to the Heart of Midlothian, the other losing also to St Johnstone the day before also brings tears to the eyes of the 'typists' at the 'Daily Record,' and this enjoyment we wish to continue.  The struggles are not over but as one man said "This is not the end, but it maybe it is the end of the beginning."

Christingle Sunday

Christingle, whatever that is, occurred today.
This is one of those Anglican advent things that I have never seen before coming here.  
The symbolic side represents Christ as light and that explains the candle on top.  The kids love it and are allowed to stand there with lit candles in hand, not something they can do often!  The vicar informed us he had to do a Health & Safety appraisal for this because candles were involved!  Just how we survived without insurance companies insisting on such daft precautions I do not begin to understand.  No accidents happened, nothing burnt down and all as usual enjoyed the day.
Symbols are often used in Anglican churches but in my mind they are not required.  Just say what you mean and get on with it is my way, too many symbolic candles, symbolic this and that and none are actually required however they like them and it gives the kids something to make them feel involved.  

An early morning frost and fog covered us this morning.  This was better than the smell of burning plastic that filled the air about this place when I came back at lunchtime.  Quite what was burning I know not but the neighbours will not be happy!  

There is still a moose loose aboot this hoose and he is annoying me. While all foodstuffs are unavailable he has now got into my plant and spread much everywhere during the night.  I again can hear him chewing at inaccessible places making it difficult for me to block him.  Two 'humane' traps have been ignored and if they continue to be ignored less humane ones will be employed. 
Happy Christmas!

Siberian Saturday

Another Christmas Saturday, another event in the town.
Shivering while playing Christmas music concerning snow and reindeer will not warm up the band.  I hope they have hot toddies at their sides as their fingers must be frozen. The fellow at the back has been somewhat excited by the songs however! 

The audience could not restrain their enthusiasm as you can see, the big man in red emerging from his grotto to listen to the band.  Possibly he wishes to avoid being inside alone with kids in these days of lawyers adverts and tabloid journalists!  Sadly dealing with kids on one level has not changed but on another PC attitudes and neurotic mums make it impossible to be alone with a child.
Like me many men will not talk to kids who talk to us innocently, however if one required help I, like most, would step in, whether others thought this right would have to wait for later.

The market swarmed as it did last week, grumbling people, cold stallholders, far too few stalls.  A very good opportunity to sell the town has fallen flat with poor planning and lack of experience.  Mind you I went to two of the usual stalls and obtained what I required.  I avoided the newer trendy ones as it was home made stuff, jewellery and the like, nice in itself but not for me.  
One Saturday to come, Christmas almost Eve, must do better. 

Note the cheery smiles...

My shopping ended at the sweet stall I usually ignore.  These cheap delightful chocolates in a presentation plastic jar will do the job.  It would have been better to find other items more appropriate but they don't exist in this little town, and I was tired and cold!

Thursday, Still Shopping

The sun was shining through the chill of the day as I trawled through all the charity shops looking for gifts for the girls at work.  I got one, four to go!  This  buying cheap stuff shopping is hard work yet not as hard as dealing with women who walk through you, push prams into you and shop girls who chat incessantly at you while you browse books!  I am in a charity shop lassie, I don't need heavy sales chat while browsing the 176 books you have littering the shelving.  I think she must have been trained at W.H.Smiths, that store is regularly considered the worst in the High Street year after year yet as it makes vast profits, Smiths have all the airport newsagent stores, the directors care not that the shop is a mess.  A messy charity shop is better than a well presented one not just because the latter raise their prices suitably.  When I played football in the days of long ago I was less worn out than when I trudged through the masses today, what is it about the 'season of goodwill' that turns shoppers into growling ruffians?

  

Next week I will have to rise early to visit Tesco and avoid those buying sufficient supplies to feed a battalion of Royal Highland Fusiliers for a week rather than just feed the family.  As soon as Boxing Day is over, and some on Boxing Day itself, the customers will be back for more overpriced goodies they do not need.  I might buy what I need only and enjoy that.

 I might avoid Sainsburys myself this year, they do not look as if they are up for it this year....

Mind you this lot are not doing to well either!  Prices are cheaper mind.

The queues outside the shops which have begun the sales early can be wearying, this lot have been waiting for some time now and still the queue does not get less.  Possibly time to shop online girls?

Gifts, Postmen

I thought Christmas was over.
I had obtained all I needed but then I must get something for the girls at work, something cheap appropriate.  However if I buy them expensive (reduced) chocolates we find one doesn't eat them, if I buy wine (cheap) two don't drink) if I buy flowers their partners get anxious (I thought about packets of seed and let them grow them themselves) so it is getting difficult.
There is also a lack of shops.
The best place to look for appropriate items would be in the museum shop!  We have the best selection of such goods in town, though the opposition is weak.  However that would not do.
I may have to travel tomorrow into one of the big towns, full of people, to search for odd items that fit each one.  Good grief I thought I had finished this ages ago!
Life is not fair!

This man visited me today with three big boxes.
This makes a change as he usually just put a card through the door.  He has never liked me since I left because of my knees.  After that the postman's work changed for the worse and he, who rarely smiled, smiled less as he saw me lazing about while he had lost his easy job and had a hard one for a change.  In fact I would rather have worked on but my knees refused, he works on, trapped by women and children, while I am at ease, in his view.  The sad thing was while some had a lot to do this postie had an easy time, the changes resulting from new management meant he lost his favoured status and was treated like the rest of us.  He and one or two others have not yet got over this.
Hee hee!

Snow Still

The fearsome snow that caused panic in all media and led to vocal attacks on gritter lorry men might be coming to an end.  As always the terror lasted a day or two and by tomorrow most snow will have evaporated, all will be forgotten by Friday.
Certainly it snowed again today, again this caused closed schools and shopping centres.  I informed the facebook lot that the local Freeport was open and when I got there desperate to see one specific shop found that today's snowfall, which had ceased by the time I arrived, had led to the closure of Freeport!  I was miffed!  This meant a trudge around the shops I trudged around on Saturday and there was nothing I wished for there.  This town has all the basics but nothing fancy apart from what the museum sells, and as I was buying for someone at the museum I could not use that.  Knackered and disappointed am I.
Tomorrow we will freeze, it will be minus 2 tonight, much colder up north, and I must trudge through sludge again tomorrow for the museum.  If the boiler fails we will be in big trouble.

It is becomng common these days for people, mostly women, to fill the media with pictures of themselves, 'selfies,' showing off their scars and boasting how this will not affect their 'confidence.' (Why are women and footballers the only ones with problems of 'confidence?')  Why are these women shoving their sickness down our throats?  Why are these self publicists allowed house room? Local and national papers appear full of people suffering a sickness, leg break, scar or whatever and demanding we pay them attention, why?
I sent many years in the NHS and have been treated several times as a patient and found no-one then interested in running to the media nor did I wish to do so myself.  Why then are these folks so often filling the pages?  Are their medical problems news?  Give it  a rest folks.

   

Snow and the World Ceases to Turn.

For a week now they have been threatening snow, this usually ends with a smattering of flakes similar to the other day, however this morning we awoke to a white landscape with large snowflakes happily floating down hour after hour.  
Naturally being Sunday many people remained indoors, I was one of them, but some have to be out and about and a few cars slowly slugged their way along the streets.  Before the snow began cold rain had fallen and the gritter lorries work was being washed away.  This meant the snow lay thus giving the moaning minnies an excuse to grumble that there were no gritter lorries on the roads.  
Any excuse for a moan and usually with no idea of how to operate a gritter service.  
Of course I don't have a car and don't need to go out.  

Having decided to remain closeted beside the heater I ventured to open the window sufficiently to photograph the effect of the snow on bare tree branches.  Apart from flurries in my face I took a few shots and returned about an hour later for more as the snow had thickened considerably in that time before beginning to thin out. 

Thick snow meant many were indoors however the tailwaggers of this world were not inclined to sit by the fire like a cat would, the park was full of people being pulled along by dogs of various sizes, tails wagging, the dogs not the people, while they chased across the park delighting in the new experience and meeting their mates doing the same thing.  Most dogs here appear to get on well. The owners, wrapped up like Nanook of the North,' followed obediently discussing hot Bovril and firesides. 

Also to be seen were several children who had not experienced such an event before.  It might be seven years since the last deep snow fall, I don't recall too much last year, and sleighs pulled by dad were enjoyed by many, but less so by dad who will now be grumbling about his bad back.   

After a while it calmed down so I opened the wee window for air and returned to my important lazing around on the laptop and after a while i heard a clattering noise.  At the window hang the bird feeders and a Robin had foolishly come through the small gap, deliberately small to stop this happening.  I think he might be youngish and not experienced enough to avoid such things but there he was above the, closed, big window.  

I tried gently to persuade him to venture towards the wee window but he remained determined to aim for the big one.  This is not easy to open or close and I wished him to follow orders, he would not.  Up on the curtains, on the wall, on books, papers and even when tired for a moment on my finger the scared and tired wee lad was constantly aiming for the high points and refusing to duck low and head for the wee window.  Several times he could see it, and by this time I drew the curtains on the big window to stop him, but he could not comprehend that was the way out.  Eventually I managed to get him trapped near the right window and forced him on to the windowsill.  His escape was clear, the window was open wide, the air was cold and what to do now?  He sat on the bar holding the window open and considered his options.  Possibly he realised it was warmer inside?

He flew off, glad to escape and with adrenalin pumping.

A wise woman claims he sat on the bar rather than fly off because he was male, could this be true?   

  

As always with a couple of inches of snow the roads are blocked, daft people crash cars, trains cease, runways are closed and the minnies moan about it in the usual fashion.  A similar but weaker day will follow tomorrow I hear, a working day and many will find the roads slippy early on.  I have food, heating, a laptop and the door firmly closed to notions of walking in snow.   

I feel sorry for the birds in this weather and rather wished Robin had settled down until it was clear to fly again, he would have been well fed.  However many birds sat through the storm, the starlings were constantly at the feeders today showing that few other options were open for them.  You can just make out a wood pigeon sitting towards the top of this picture facing to the east into the snow as it falls.  No hiding for the birds in this weather.

Soon of course it will be slush, then wet, floods here and there and more reason to grumble.
How often we faced this in Edinburgh?  Yet today there was frost up there and no snow whatsoever!  It is a disgrace that we get their snow, it belongs to them up north.  I watched the game at Airdrie on BBC ALBA and by six in the evening as the game finished the BBC weather claimed the temperature was minus four!  Colder than Moscow as the tabloids like to boast.  It is merely zero here now.

Slaving Away Saturday

Saturday ought to be one of my many days of rest and instead I have twice wandered slowly around the town searching for things and also spent time in the museum.  I wandered in there out of habit and found the lass once again on her own.  This is not a good situation and I hung about for a while as I was in no hurry and enjoyed the chat.  I heard about the reasons for the failure of the Christmas lights, the chap responsible left the job and no-one bothered to replace him.  This meant nobody headed up an organised Christmas, no money, no working together and no efficient result.  A wasted opportunity to put the town on the map.

This however was not the only turkey in town.  This guy and his mate spent much time showing off to the kids and indeed frightening them by his cry.  "Gobble Gobble" sound OK on tv or in cartoons but when a bird yells it in your face many kids ran for their lives.  I followed them!  

The 'little donkey' was not that keen to meet folks, he spent much time with his head stuffed in his feed.  Reindeer last week, donkeys, turkeys and sheep this week, I suspect the animal lovers who grumbled about having them in the town are at this moment writing to the local paper demanding these beats are put out into the fields.  Actually by this time they probably are, or tucked up nicely for the night.

The whole point of having such attractions is to bring folks into the town centre, this however is harmed by a lack of political control.  The council will not reduce the rates, small shops canny survive and we now have many very good charity shops but wandering about the town today I realised how little is on offer beyond the basics.  Sure some big shops have premises but most are loss leaders and many have closed, that leaves two big supermarkets and many disgruntled shoppers.   Big towns 15 miles away benefit.

   
I was much tempted to visit the 'Bull' as I passed but not only was it crowded my knees indicated home was preferred.  The 'Bull' has stood there at least since 1769 when it was 'licensed' as an Inn but I expect it operated as an Inn before that.  The shape of the building makes me wonder if it was originally a house at the edge of town, possibly a farmhouse, the 'Nags Head' standing me as I took the picture certainly was a farmhouse.  Much changed over the years and extended into the one time Saddlers next door it is one of the towns most 'popular' pubs.  Few pubs are not popular and at least this one has not been closed down by police request as one or two others have been.  
Until the 1960's the pub was popular with farmers and their men who came in on Wednesday and Saturday for the market.  Cows were still seen here in the 60's and in times past small stockholds would operate outside the pubs, sheep or pigs held therein.   A lovely aroma for the townsfolk.