Christmas Exhaustion Has Got Me

Boy do I feel tired. Too tired to drop or adgitize much tonight. It'll have to be bed for me soon. Sorry folks.

After breakfast and when the off to work traffic had settled down, we went out to find an electric fire. With more space here there's more to keep warm and even with the central heating it's not as cosy as our last house. The previous owners left a black hole which had obviously been for a fire although there is no chimney, and it's not an outside wall, so it has to be electric. Anyway, we ordered one and it should be ready for collection tomorrow and we can get it set up. Not that I'll have any time to sit in front of it. But I wanted it here well before my family comes for Christmas.

Then we had something else to sort out. Five months into our move and we still haven't sorted out our TV reception. The previous people here used a Sky cable service, but I am loath to have a monthly payment as I only watch for about an hour a day, being too busy in front of my computer screen the rest of the time. Hubby watches even less. There is also a TV aerial (not up to date) which currently gives us very limited access to programmes. And there is a satellite dish on the roof of the extension.

So this morning we bought a freesat box, followed all the directions to set it up - and got nothing. Hunted through the directories for someone who might help, phoned and he is coming tomorrow morning. I expect (hope) we'll find we've connected it to the wrong cable. If the dish is no good I guess I'll be forking out even more money to keep my family happy this Christmas, and have nothing left from my earnings for the last couple of months.

I've been inundated with writing work from one old and one new client, so spent the rest of the day on all that before breaking off to cook an eat with hubby. Now he's doing the washing up, bless him. I've now thought of two more Christmas cards that need sending. The ironing is piling up; loads of presents need wrapping; more have to be bought; there is paper to be sorted everywhere; we haven't even thought about decorations or food yet.

But darn it. I'm just too tired. Good night.

A Doggie Tipple Story

Christmas approaching reminds me of Bramble, a tan and white springer spaniel who is our delightful charge when we dogsit for Rob, her owner. We had her for the day on Boxing Day last year.

But we had seen her on Christmas Eve at our local pub. Because it was Christmas, she had been given a special treat of a bowl of Guinness, and during the hour we were there I saw her come back to it about three times. Miraculously the bowl always seemed to be full.

In between she did her usual trick of poncing for the biscuits that are kept behind the bar for her. She knows just what a soft touch I am and usually focuses her attention on me when I’m there, sitting close to me and fixing me with her great soulful eyes, head cocked to one side. Every so often she will rise up and gently tap my lap with a front paw. Eventually I give in and get her a biscuit, which she is allowed to eat when she has given me each front paw in succession.

When Rob brought her to our house on Boxing Day morning, he told us how the Guinness had affected her. Walking home they always stop at the kerb before crossing the roads. That night, each time when sitting she gradually leaned further over before subsiding in a heap in the gutter, fortunately not in the path of any oncoming vehicles. At home, she just managed to reach her basket before slumping into it and falling asleep.

On Boxing Day morning she was her usual rumbustious self, but I wonder if she had a hangover on Christmas day morning.

We’ll miss her this Christmas now that we’ve moved house and she isn’t close by.

The photo isn't Bramble, but a dog that looks quite like her. It's from Wikimedia Commons by The Boy that time forgot.

Adgitize and Entrecard

You may have noticed that I am stepping up my blogging schedule at the moment. That’s because I’ve now joined the adgitize brigade and I get points each time I post, so it gets me closer to payout. No sure how long I can keep it up because I’m cheating a bit and using old posts from my Writelink blog which were lost to my readers on the changeover to a new site. But I still have them on my PC.

I’m also dropping more entrecards because I have a new way of bloghopping so that I can do adgitize clicks as well. I used to just go through my EC inbox. Now I start there and click when I find an adgitize ad. The beauty of it is that, like me, most adgitizers are entrecarders as well, so we can kill two birds with one stone. Once I’ve done my 100 clicks, which I never thought I’d get round to, I go back to my EC inbox and there are just a few left. So my EC dropping has gone up from around 60 a day to around 140.

I still try to read the ones that really grab me. But the downside is that I don’t have as much time to comment as I used to do, especially as it’s a busy time of year. I’ve also picked up some more writing work, which of course has to get priority. No doubt there will come days when I can concentrate more on commenting again.

Anyway, I really love the blogosphere, and can’t imagine what I did with my time before I found it.

PS. The pic above is an old one of Lyme Regis harbour at the cob, where I went to meet my sister today to exchange Christmas presents.

What You Find When You Move House

When I was packing to move house earlier this year I found a box of papers in the top cupboard in my bedroom. Sitting on the top was an exam paper for Option 1, Arts for the CNAA Certificate in June 1978. I’d had three hours to answer four questions, and I’d put crosses against the ones I attempted.

These were the questions I apparently answered:

1. (Marlowe) “His own worst enemy”: does this homely phrase account for Faustus’ damnation or is it at all possible to see him as a victim of circumstances?
2. (Shakespeare): Trace the degradation in Macbeth’s character from the murder of Duncan to his own death.
3. (Milton): To what extent can “Samson Agonistes" be seen as an attempt to reconcile Biblical themes of purification through suffering with the Classical dramatic form?
4. (Dickens): Mr Jaggers announced that PIP, in consequence of his great expectations, was “to be brought up as a gentleman.” What do you think Dickens meant us to understand by “gentleman”, and which of Pip’s male acquaintances, then and thereafter, could help him to acquire real gentility?

I have no idea what I put in my answers, but I did pass. I don’t think for a minute that I could do it today.

A Fishy Story

Salmon pic is from Wikimedia Commons by Joe Mabel

One day I was browsing a secondhand bookstall and my eye was caught by that extraordinary book that everyone was talking about last year. (Or was it the year before? Quick check to find publication date was 2007.)

Anyway that’s how I came to be reading Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday.

This must be the funniest, yet most deadly serious book I’ve ever read. It’s about: politics and civil servants, international relations, spin, power at the top, power of the media, love and marriage, money and high finance, science, war, terrorism, assassination and accidental death. Oh yes, and salmon. And it’s absolutely HILARIOUS.

I'm not going to spoil the story by telling you any more about it. If you’ve read it already, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If not, go out and find it as quickly as you can.

If you read quickly enough, you could always pass it on to someone else as a present for Christmas or whatever you celebrate.

Catching Up Again

I'm just back from a great long weekend with my daughter and granddaughter. Have caught up with some friends over lunch, taken in the show Blood Brothers in the Phoenix Theatre in London's Charing Cross Road, and done quite a bit of Xmas shopping. Took the train home and now I have so much catching up to do.

In the meantime, here are some more Nile pics as I promised to Anna who commented on my last post.

Wordless Wednesday - Sugar Beet Factory on the NIle