How The Tables Have Turned

25 December – The 25th of December has rolled around again and it’s very easy to forget the true historical meaning of this time of year. That’s why I’ll be celebrating by consuming vast quantities of flesh and ale and bowing down to the false gods of money and sloth – you know, celebrating the pagan way.
Due to constrictions of the season had a semi-house meeting where nothing of consequence was discussed over an excellent Sax prepared breakfast of Five Star Hotel Scrambled Eggs ?, Crispy Bacon and Blueberry and Oat Pancakes with Greek Yoghurt and Canadian Maple Syrup – which, I will not be too modest about, was f**king awesome.  Afterwards took Dave the housemate down to Christmas lunch with the extended family.  Largest gathering of relations by blood and marriage and de facto that I can remember ... Last time something approached this number would have been the last election night where Mark Latham broke my heart and my aunt then stamped on the pieces.  Food was excellent and some relations were expectedly and unexpectedly both tedious and brilliant – afternoon was taken up with a showing of ‘Kenny’ which was always going to be slightly irritating as a movie pretty much shuts down a party (even if only temporarily) but was especially annoying as I’d just seen it the night before (and had even made a late night bike ride through sketchy streets to get it back in time for the cheap rate).  Mater seemed to be pretty pleased with her present of a basic, relatively bad quality bike, although it should be more than adequate for her uses (I say this in defence as I know she’s the most (only?) regular reader of this diatribe.  Felt a bit strange fixing the bike up and then watching her ride off down Holford Crescent – this particular incident took exactly 22 (or maybe 23 or 24 – can’t remember how old I was when I got my first bicycle) years to reverse itself.