a merry christmas to one and all!

I have just finished watching Dr Who, always required Christmas night viewing in our house. The effects were certainly impressive; like Avatar, the money is right there up on the screen. But it just didn't do it for me this time. Katherine Jenkins was a mistake: Charlotte CHurch would have been a much better choice.

As it happens, we were back from Christmas dinner at my mother's place only just in time. On the whole, it wasn't too awful, quite fun in some ways. There was one cock-up, however, and it was my doing. Given the task of grilling the morsels of dark turkey meat my brother had prepared earlier, I thought I would have enough time to nip outside for a quick fag. Unfortunately I left it a minute too long to come back, by which time one side had become more than a little toasted. Ironic really, as this was part of my brother's plan to offer something my toothless father-in-law (and me too, if to a lesser extent) that he could chew easily. Everyone doggedly ploughed through the dark meat pieces, ignoring the fact that they had the texture (if not the flavour), of overdone bacon scraps.

Later in the afternoon, my mum asked my FiL how he was doing. He thought hard about it for a while, then said:
" You know, it's about twelve and a half years since my wife died..."

It was a moment of sublime poignancy on a sun drenched, freezing Christmas day. It's what I'll remember the most, anyway.