Bimbling Along

I suspect that no-one here will need this guide but the BBC have offered a novice’s guide to going to church at Christmas. BBCi The short version goes like this:
1. The numbers on the wall are hymn numbers. Cross-reference to the book in your hand
2. Sit, stand and kneel as others do. It’s OK to sit when they kneel
3. Find a seat to one side and a little way back, so you can copy others when unsure
4. Feel free to take communion, though some churches may offer you a blessing
5. At the sharing of the peace, go with the flow. Most churches will at least shake hands
6. Dress smart casual
7. Don’t stress if you’re late. Sneak in at the back
8. Midnight Mass doesn’t necessarily start at midnight. It might begin as early as 8pm. Check church website

I think my favourite is number one, though I am concerned at the news that there are Midnight Masses that can start as early as 8pm. That’s more or less afternoon!!

Isn’t this modern world a wonderful thing?? The way that technology has made things so much easier?? So this story of 1948 technology coming to the rescue of snow-stranded commuters at Victoria Station raised a smile for me.

It also gives me an excuse to play this video that I took back in June of the train in question!!

While grumbling at how people seem to be unable to drive in snow as it took four times longer to get to The Office this afternoon I happened to switch over to Radio4. A very dangerous thing to do because it can give you ideas… dangerous ideas!!

On the food programme they were talking about eau de vie production in the Alsace region of France. Sounds interesting. Basically it’s just fruit… in a bottle.

There is just one, tiny problem. It seems that while it is not illegal to own a still it is illegal to use one. I know that doesn’t really make sense to me either, but I suppose it adds to suspence!!

For the last two weeks I have been enjoying a full English breakfast, cereal and toast… what a way to start a day!! Admittedly it was then tempered by having to carry heavy survey equipment up and down (and then back up) the hills of North Wales… in December.

There is something about starting each day with +40lbs on your back and a wet, muddy, cold, windy, steep hill staring you in the face. I think the word is ‘demoralising’. On the otherhand, after nine straight days of strong winds, rain/hail showers and really quite cold temps* we finished with three days where it was lovely and sunny.

What this does now mean is that I’m sitting here starving as I’m now used to having a really big breakfast, which is usually I meal I tend to skip over. But it’s nearly lunchtime and then I can eat again!!!

Yay!!

* – for those that know me for most of the time I was wearing two pairs of trousers, t-shirt, body-warmer, fleece, jacket, wooly hat, two pairs of gloves, thermal socks… it was a little bit on the cold side.

I visited my local brewery this afternoon (the Hogs Back Brewery) to pick up some beer for me and to get a variety pack to take with me for an ale fan up in Bangor. They do some very fine ales in Wales, indeed I’ve drunk a few of them, but I do have some loyalty towards my local brewery. Especially as they do some exceptionally fine beers.

However, the quote about being visited by a friendly yet anxious ghost is about a slightly different beer. This one is slightly stronger than your usualy beer and the brewers suggest that you should drink it “in small servings and with an air of aristocratic nonchalance. In exactly the same manner that you would enjoy a fine whisky, a Frank Zappa album or a visit from a friendly yet anxious ghost.”

I very nearly used the name of the beer as my post title… after all it has the wonderfully off the wall name of Tactical Nuclear Penguin and at 32% it’s… pretty strong.

“It’s probably a combination of our new president, a feeling that change has swept the land and thinking about how they can get involved in this change.” – Bonnie Greer

Since her appearance on Question Time I have a growing admiration of Bonnie Greer, and then she says something like this. Of course, on it’s own, this statement doesn’t seem too bad, indeed the election of President Obama has led to a great feeling of change not only in the United States but across the world.

However, I don’t think that he can claim* any sort of credit for the first African-American Disney Princess, Tiana in The Princess and the Frog. Mainly because, being a hand-drawn animated film it has been in production for a number of years and the ethnicity was decided back when Barack Obama was an unknown senator from Illinois… if not before!!

* – not that he is…

There isn’t something reassuring about getting home to a house that is looking rather dark… especially when it shouldn’t be. However, that’s what happened on Saturday (yes, I’m running behind with news) when something somewhere shorted causing all power to disappear.

Even after two visits from the electrician we only have most lights and about half the power sockets working which is most annoying. The current theory is that there’s something amiss somewhere between the attic and upstairs hall. Unfortunally my bedroom is situated between these two points and so when I popped home on my way from Harrods to The Office carpets and floorboards were up in an attempt to access the wires.

All I can say is that the problem had better be down there now!!

Over the last couple of weeks I have taken to watching a Swedish dectective series on BBC4 called Wallander. I have a funny feeling that there has been a recent English adaption done by the BBC but I much prefer to watch it in the original Swedish. I don’t know why, but it just seems…. more correct.

Admitedly you have to read subtitles (unless you happen to know Swedish) but there is just something… and I’m not sure what, that just feels right. Sure, in the first episode there were five rather brutal murders, two shootings and a suicide by tank, and in the second a rather disturbing child pornography ring storyline. This episode has so far had one muder and one kidnapping and it seems like the perp has been breaking into our hero’s (Kurk Wallander) flat…

Excellent….

Accepting that various confidentiality rules means that I can’t tell you some things about my trip down to the Southern Hemisphere, I can tell you that the trip itself was brilliant. I guess when you have a wide pool from which to select people from it is possible to pick twenty that should get on together and even though we ranged from our early twenties to our early fifties, came from all four countries and corners of the United Kingdom we all bonded really well. In fact, conisdering that we only met Saturday evening the fact that there were tears when we all said goodbye early Thursday morning shows how well we all gelled.

While you could see that there we sort of split into three loose groups we usually all came together for dinner out in town, and of course we were hanging out together during the day. Not to mention our wrap party that we held in the hotel (we were only told to keep the volume down once) until about three in the morning… but when the beer comes in litre bottles and costs about two of our English pounds… well you might as well enjoy yourself!!

Of course, two flights the length of London-Buenos Aires are annoying, especially if like me you tend not to be able to sleep… on the other hand I did manage to watch Moon, Up, The Time Travellers Wife, The Simpsons Movie, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (twice), Pale Rider, Land of the Lost, Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen as well as a number of tv programmes that were also available.

And because we were in the Southern Hemisphere… well, the toilets flush in the wrong direction!!!

Tomorrow I am off on an, albeit short, adventure to lands foreign… and to be honest I’m not sure why. Thing is, I don’t really want to go. Well, sort of. It is one of those cases where when everything started I never thought it would actually come to pass, that at some point it would all come to an end long before I actually had to have a packed bag and head off to the airport.

But it hasn’t.

I suspect that somewhere in that is a moral about consequences… or possibly about looking before you leap, however all of that is fairly moot now as I finish off packing my bag and make sure that I have everything that I might possibly need. No doubt something will be forgotten, it always is, but I shall try to be as ready as I possibly can be.

Wish me luck!!