Wrapping

To be absolutely fair to her, my wife shouldered the burden of wrapping the presents prior to Christmas. Most at least.

Today she's taking the girls to see her friend; they're off to visit a soft play place for a few hours, and I'm left in peace.

Ahhh…

But, as-ever, a last-minute rush to wrap those gifts, and an 'emergency' trip by my wife to the toy shop for the youngest recipient, left me wrapping the few allocated to those lovely people.

I didn't moan or sulk or internalise, no. I just got on with it and wrapped.

It seems my New Year's Resolutions have just been implemented. Early, too!

I'd best make some for 2016.

Fat

I've eaten too much over the last few days. For most in the western, developed world it's an obvious thing to do at this time of year. Eat to excess, buy to excess, etc.

Me though; I haven't put weight on for years. I've tended to lose it instead. In that respect too I'm atypical.

2015 was a year of a small but consistent weight loss for me – started during #Movember 2014 and helped along by more fruit & veg, fewer slices of bread.

There's a week to go until I go back to work. Hopefully in that time normality will be restored.

Sales

The seasonal sales have already started. In fact, some have been going on, on-and-off, since the week before Black Friday.

What have we bought?

I got a shoulder bag for my wife, a vibrant red thing of the same design as her black one. A genuine half price.

The laptop she bought before the sales commenced has been reduced by the same retailer in their Boxing Day sale by a whopping £200! To exactly what she paid for it.

The Xbox One with Kinect, the thing I wanted in the Black Friday sales – the one that the day before was £350, on the day £370, and the day after dropped to £340 – is now £335. Cheaper with 3 games than without.

Crazy!

So, what do we need?

  • A TV stand.
  • Wireless printer & scanner (Canon.)
  • Coke Zero.
  • Dog food.

Not believing the hype: Easy.

Pudding

I just now had my Christmas Pudding. It was delicious, laced with brandy and, I think, rum, and covered with single cream – and 'twas an individual-sized portion.

Why individual?

My wife doesn't like it and my daughters (8 & 6) don't have alcohol for obvious reasons (and don't like rich fruit cakes anyway.)

Ruby puppy* sat and waited for a while, ever hopeful, but my resolve never weakened.

*She's a lady now, our Ruby; perhaps I should start being consistent and calling her a dog.

Hello World!

My second (test) blog post using jekyll-now repo. This may work! Simply deleting the original file and expecting the blog to catch up did not.

jekyll-now

My first blog post using jekyll-now repo. Yes, this is indeed a test.

The date of the first post is simply a holdover from the repo from which I cloned mine.

For more instructions on how I did this, head over to the Jekyll Now repository on GitHub.

Floods

Not much to say today apart from to mention the local flooding (thankfully not hyperlocal, i.e. not right here.)

The power was off for 1-1/2 hours this morning, the centre of Rochdale flooded as the River Roch burst its banks, and at the sewage works. Bury had a gas explosion, and a pub collapsed not far north…

My wife, working tonight, left her phone here. She had a couple of diversions en-route, so I'm hopeful it's an easy drive home in the morning.

It's still bloody raining!

Charitable

How do you explain to someone, without actually explaining, that you will not buy their raffle tickets (all proceeds to local charities, prizes donated by local businesses) because you already gave more than your allocation for the month?

Not an easy few words.

So I kept my few words to an absolute minimum, and yet still experienced a sense of guilt. It probably doesn't matter that I already gave to one of the beneficiary charities a few weeks ago…

Are we programmed to donate socially, judged unfairly when we don't?

Probably. And probably.

I always have picked 'my' charities to suit my history, circumstances and mood. And occasionally because my friends or acquaintances believe passionately-enough to mention them. Or in response to media-led frenzies. It's a perfect storm when all three influences coincide.

Yeah, because I'm only human.

Paris

Life is complicated. Living it is easy. Put one foot in front of another, breathe in, breathe out, drink, blink, eat, pee, poo, sleep, work, play, laugh, cry. And then it's over.

There is more, of course. Aspiration. The latest smartphone, TV, games console, car, a house, family, friends, safety.

And then there's freedom.

Those of us who have it are incredibly lucky. Yet still we moan about the overreaching of the states we live in. Surveillance everywhere, taxes for female sanitary items, too many traffic wardens…

Imagine being invaded by a foreign power, your independence taken away, large men with brutal attitudes and frightening weapons always in your face for reasons you cannot understand. Imagine your school, your playground, hospital, workplace, all rendered unusable by decades of conflict. Imagine your home bulldozed one day just because someone wants the plot of land it sits on. Imagine a peaceful day broken by a knock on the roof, followed only minutes later by the destruction of your home, your neighbourhood.

Imagine all of this for every day of your life, no hiding place, no security, no hope of ever influencing the people who so callously disregard you. No hope of ever getting them to change their attitudes, so in thrall are they to the bigots who elect them and pay for their advanced weapons systems.

I cannot.

I cannot begin to imagine my life being shaped by the influences that cause someone to become a terrorist. But what I can do is attempt to at least understand why.

I'm not about to start down that road right now, not in a blog post. Mine isn't a knee-jerk reaction shaped by the latest news, the cause forgotten about in a desire to have someone else do something about it. Something quick. Retribution.

Even in my comfortable existence I've not forgotten one fact, apparently beyond the wit of a sizeable proportion of the people commenting on the Paris killings of Friday 13th November 2015… And all the other atrocities carried out in the past in the name of our freedoms to give us our comfortable lives.

It's a statement that covers a multitude of 'sins.'

Religions don't kill people, people kill people.

Bucket (2015-10-17)

We're supposed to prepare a bucket list* – stuff we'd like to do, accomplish, experience before meeting the Grim Reaper, kicking the proverbial bucket. Death, it's something to be prepared for, not by winding one's life down but by living it.

Right, here's my first public list, starting with the things I've done already:

  • Visit the USA. (Five times.)
  • Visit Canada, see Niagara Falls. (Once.)
  • Visit Egypt. (Twice.)
  • Visit Amsterdam, see the red-light district. (Half-done, probably the only man alive to fail at this simple task.)
  • Visit Bruges, see Hieronymous Bosch's triptych. (Twice and once.)
  • Propose marriage somewhere extraordinarily romantic in the most romantic way imaginable. (Not in a port on a ferry! Maybe prior to a renewal of vows?)
  • Get married, have 2.4 children, get comfortable. (2 girls, currently 3 pets, comfortable is years away.)
  • Visit somewhere hot, chill out for 2 weeks. (We got married, honeymooned in Antigua, I nearly relaxed.)
  • See live NFL American Football. (Cleveland Browns.)
  • See live US College Football. (Bowling Green.)
  • See live Friday night high school Football. (Wauseon OH.)
  • Stand in front of a piece of art that won't let me go, (Cleveland, a typical Mark Rothko piece, 3 horizontal bands, perfect.)
  • Visit London, England. (I'd seen Washington DC, Ottawa, Cairo, Edinburgh, Cardiff – but not my native country's very own capital city, at least not until literally 2 weeks prior to this post!)
  • Try the cats' food to see if it's 'good enough.) (Don't try this at home children!)

Unfulfilled ambitions:

  • Read my copy of 'things to do now you're 50' and do some of those things now I am,
  • Get a UK Premier League football season ticket and redevelop a familiarity with the sport. (I used to have a Championship-level one with Burnley FC),
  • Learn to swim. (To join my family in the pool),
  • Ride a camel, (Egypt would be favourite, when 'things' settle),
  • Triage my science fiction collection, broaden my horizons,
  • Clear out the garage, even though a car will not fit,
  • Regain the patience to read again. (I used to have a voracious appetite for books, it's passed on to my oldest daughter),
  • Visit at least 2 more European countries. (Italy for my wife [she wants to see Florence, I want to visit Pompeii] and France [e.g. Euro Disney]),
  • Save up for a cruise (mini cruises across to Europe do not count),
  • Reduce my reliance on technology,
  • Live a little…

Now-impossible:

  • Become a pilot, spaceman, cowboy.
  • Turn back the clock to study for and get a university mechanical engineering degree, for a somewhat different career. (Or leave home to work for the UK Ordnance Survey as a cartographer.)
  • See Talking Heads play live. Anywhere.

Not complete, for this is a first draft at a point half-way through my life.**

Do you know something, I've been bloody lucky.

* Thanks to @bsag on App.net for providing the inspiration for this post. Just a few words, but so well-timed.

** Ha! I should be so lucky.