:: jingle bells

Merry Christmas!

It's not Christmas any more, of course, it's Boxing Day ... and the year is nearly done. I got some lovely presents - thank you everyone! - and ate far too much. One of the presents was 70 daffodil bulbs (from Faye), which will need to be planted in the next few days. It's not been very frosty so far and the ground is still soft. Faye also gave me a gnome, my first ever.

I worked yesterday, not terribly hard of course, about five hours all told. I'm at work right now and will probably get home an hour earlier than normal.

I've just now bought a new TV. Eeeeek! The curse of online shopping! But it does mean I didn't have to actually battle the sales crowds at John Lewis, where the TV department is always packed, even when there isn't a sale on (it's so bad they operate a ticketing system). This way I'll have to wait for delivery, but in my book that beats waiting around to be served. I had fully intended to wait until later in the year to replace my old TV but, well, it seemed a bargain, and JL does a free five-year guarantee. The scart connection on my old set (a 15" portable) is conking out. I have to keep the plug jammed in with a pile of videos or I lose sound or get a red or green screen. This new one is a space-age 26" flat-screen marvel, yippee!

Apparently there's a direct correlation between the amount of TV you watch and the size of your backside.

But I read in the paper (ours - we are desperate for "news" at this time of year) that dogwalkers are fitter than the average gym-goer, so that's good. Running after a swan-savaging greyhound is probably equivalent to an hour on an exercise bike!

We had a great walk the other day - went to Faye's place (in Santa hat and antlers, laden with gifts) and after coffee and rum truffles we all walked along the Water of Leith to Inverleith Park, Bertie's top favourite city venue, and then back via Stockbridge. I think Bertie was impressed that Faye's flat is so close to the park. He's very nervous of her place because on his first two visits there, there were fireworks outside. He always tries to run back down the stairs, and spends most of his visit looking anxiously out the windows.

Faye was also working on Christmas Day, and says she had a great time. One of the traditions at her workplace is that the managers serve the staff with their Christmas dinner in the canteen - brilliant. She likes the atmosphere there and her co-workers, but will be looking for better paid work in the new year.

OK I had better crack on with my own work. Hope everyone had a good Christmas!

Two days off coming up, not a moment too soon. Last week was exhausting. Even yesterday was tiring, and that was a day off. I haven't got a lot planned for my days off, hurrah!

Today I went for a great walk, over an hour of brisk healthy striding. The roads were thronging with other brisk walkers -- the cross-country footpaths are pretty much all shut down because of the foot and mouth outbreak. The Dalmeny estate is on a war footing: the main estate entrance and the estate farm entrance were covered in straw and guards had been posted to make sure visitors used the disinfectant footbath.

The more I learn about foot and mouth, the more baffled I am. I'd always thought it was a dread disease, on a par with leprosy or bubonic plague -- in fact it's been called a plague in headlines in A Certain Newspaper. But it turns out it's about as serious as a bout of the flu. If you leave the sick pigs and cows alone they get better. One writer said the wholesale slaughter was an economic thing: infected livestock lose condition & weight and aren't worth as much. And because it spreads so fast it's better to kill all the animals in an infected herd than risk gazillions more animals getting it and being worth less. Apparently.

The other thing, of course, is that you can vaccinate livestock against foot and mouth disease. But that costs money, and again, apparently it's cheaper to risk having to slaughter all your animals than to make sure they don't get sick in the first place.

Meanwhile, back in my disease-free habitat, Dougie and Bob are coming in a fortnight's time to do the floors. He reckons it will take two days: Saturday and Sunday. I have to go in to the warehouse tomorrow and make sure they've got all the right stuff, which they'll then deliver. In the week before Dougie arrives, I'll have to move as much furniture upstairs as possible. The windows blokes are coming on Thursday. If they fix the boards around the french doors then, I can sand and varnish them over the following few days, so they'll be finished before Dougie and Bob get stuck in.

I have fantasies of painting the livingroom before the floors are done, but I have to stamp them down. I would have to scrape off all the embossed wallpaper first, ghastly business, then no doubt plaster over various holes and cracks before painting, or put up lining paper. Just too complicated, messy, time-consuming and tiring. Same with the dining room. I've more or less decided on colours -- darkish green for the dining room, perhaps with dark red velvet curtains and a lightshade with some kind of crystals or sparkles; and my favourite pale adam green for the living room with white dotted muslin curtains. I'd like to recover the sofa and chairs in lighter shades too, cream and pink maybe.

Well I guess now I've lured you all over here I'd better write something. UMMMM... I just had a few days off, which I thoroughly enjoyed -- my last longish break for a while. I drove up to Anstruther on the Fife coast, stopping off in Elie for a good long walk around the harbour and over the dunes. It was blustery and cold, blew away a few cobwebs. It was high tide as well, so waves were crashing against the sea walls. At Anstruther I had another, shorter walk, then had a slap-up tea at the local fish restaurant, which serves the best fish and chips in Scotland. It was great, I must do it more often.
No word yet on the insurance -- I phoned last week and they'd only gotten up to claims from the middle of November. The blokes come to put in the new windows soon, next week or the week after.
I have to do some work now!