I'd rather be skiing...

...and to be honest, once you've watched this, and if you've ever skied, so will you...

Chimæra from Sherpas Cinema on Vimeo.

It's been very quiet round here, but that's just because I've been busy doing stuff. When I say "Stuff" I mean that in the loosest possible way. I haven't really being doing anything, other than enjoying the Christmas break. A LOT of socialising, eating and drinking and generally making merry. But I would still rather be skiing.

Let's have a quick summary of what's happened (if anything) since he last time we were both here. Boxing day proper was of course on the 27th. Really was a lot of fun watching the realisation dawn on so many people's faces that it really is on a week day and not a Sunday. Equally, this lack of understanding caused no-end of propblems for people. Not least the hunt, which while the actual chasing of foxes is banned still have a romp around the fields chasing nothing (at least as far as you can see). They had low turn outs due to the fact that no-one understood what day it was on. Even the Radio Times "Feel the heft of Christmas Televisual entertainment" managed to get it wrong. Classic.

On Tuesday we decided we'd have a rtip to town (not the city) and spend some of the Christmas vouchers.  As it turns out, I didn't spend any of them. Had a mooch about in Waterstones, and didn't see anything I wanted. the main problem for me with shopping in this period of time is my Birthday. It's just around the corner in January, and there's every chance I'll get yet more vouchers/cash for that (at least if I'm very very very lucky), so it makes me not want to buy anything right now, and instead "wait and see" (which incidentally is something that we used to have for dinner on many occasions when I was a youth - as in Me: "Mum, Whats for tea?" Mum: "Wait and See")

We met up with Auntie S and M. I'm not particularly adverse to wandering round the shops with Mrs G & Daughter, but M doesn't enjoy it and would far prefer to be tucked up in a corner of a pub supping ale and slowly slipping into a stupor. Not wanting to see a man drinking on his own, I had to do the decent thing and support him on his mission. As you can imagine, it was a tremendous hardship and there were moments where I would have gladly given it all up. I mean, having to wait almost 10 minutes to be served!!?? It's practically unacceptable. Still we marched onwards at it, heads held high, until the march became a stagger, and the heads started lolling.

Before you get too judgemental about drinking during daylight hours in the middle of the week, M's radiotherapy starts next week, so as far as I'm concerned I think he's completely entitle to enjoy one too many in the short term. I was only to happy to support him in his quest. Genuinely.  Not sure that either of us felt the same on Wednesday morning though. :-)

Worse still was Wednesday was the big planned party of the week.  I with help of Johnnie had organised a bit of a get together for the Wiltshire lads. This a group of friends who go way back. In our teens we hung out with each other every day, in our 20's probably once a week, in our 30's once a month, and now we're just edging into our 40's and it's seems like it's becoming once a year. If we're not careful it'll be once a decade and then we'll be gone!!. So it's an important pleasure to get us all together and something that we all enjoy once we can finally manage it.  This year we did a decent job of it, and we're going to try and do it more often in the coming 12 months - but we'll see how that works out.  

The evening consisted of an entertaining bus ride on the Number 10, some excellent food in the Brown Jug in Cheltenham, some excellent drinks in various establishments including The Cross Keys, The Suffolk Arms, The Beehive, The Montpellier Wine Bar & Subtone, A marvellous round of spoof which I was very pleased not to have won, A stodgy pizza and an eventful taxi ride home, which saw me make my first ever 999 call. Told you it was eventful - can't say anymore, other than no-one was injured and that youths shouldn't be allowed alcohol until they've been on a course in "How not to abuse their elders" (none of us I might add - we were just innocent passers-by)

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Thursday morning meant a bit of a fry up, and reminiscing and then eventually putting the house back together. Not that it was particularly bad, but you understand. Six blokes kipped down pretty much where the fell...  nuff said. 

In amongst all this boozing and gorging, there's been the iTunes 12 Days of Christmas presents - lots of fun stuff in there, a purchase of "The Prodigy - Invaders Must Die" (excellent stuff) and several movie watchings which I eluded to in the last post. In no particular order: 3 out of the 4 Home Alone movies (I really couldn't stomach anymore than that), Elf (fantastically stupidly funny for Christmas), Inception (again), Iron Man 2 (again), How The Grinch Stole Christmas (which was alright, but I've seen it now, and don't need to go back), Toy Story 3, and Shrek Forever After (both awesome in their own ways).  I've been a very good consumer.

Back at work today, but its quiet (too quiet). To be honest, there's not a huge amount for me to do (possibly less than that) but it does give me an opportunity to tidy up ready for the "all new" role next week. Of course it's New Years Eve!!  and we all know what that means don't we?  Yep, yet more drinking and eating and general celebrating. Well, maybe. But not for me.  Mrs G and I are staying in and enjoying each others company. A quiet night rather than trying to fight to a bar to be charged three times the normal price for a soft drink and four times the normal price for a hard one. Equally we're not visiting with friends or going to a party, we're just chilling.  The last chance rest before the New Year proper.

I have had a wonderful few days off, but it would be really great to be up a mountain in France wouldn't it?  Perhaps we'll have a glass of Gluwein to see in 2011.

Hmmm, but then again, we wouldn't have had the fun we've had...  

Happy New Year, and have a safe one.

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This post originally appeared here: Posterous