A merry Christmas to everybody! Make up the fires, and buy another coal scuttle. –Scrooge.

Slow Internet connection, family commitments and laziness have been holding me back from blogging. But all is merry in ole England. I have a cold, but it’s that sort of mild, stuffy, head-feels-like-it’s-in-a-sauna sort of cold that doesn’t make you feel too ill but means that you eat lots of clementines and chocolates.

On Friday evening we attended the carol service at Kingston Seymour village church. It was a really nippy night, but pretty, as we walked through the misty churchyard into the candlelit church. We sat almost on the transept, so my dad could point out various elderly and obscure relations to me as they came in. We sang lots of old favourites, and they had usual comforting old scripture readings from Isaiah and the Gospels, as well as some John Betjeman. We had mince pies and tea at the village hall afterwards, courtesy of the Young Farmers Association.

It’s been cold and grey and foggy for days, but this morning was crisp and pale-gold. I decorated the tree, which we bought from a dark, curly-haired gypsy with scars on his face. At church, kids were wearing the traditional tea towels etc on their heads for nativity scenes-- little Mary kept losing her blue headdress. On they way home, Kylie was playing her favourite Christmas songs on the radio, the snail was on the thorn, and all was pretty much right in the world.

I think I shall go and have another mince pie.

Lena Gets Cutesy

I don't have time for a real post, but I feel the need to blog...

This one isn't so much cutesy as dashed funny. Takes me back to my school years (cue harp music and swimmy, soft focus image on screen)...

This I stole from someone else's blog. I think if the result had been different, they would have lost all credibility.



This is the piece de resistance of cuteness. May it herald a season of joy and exuberance for you. Jumpetty, jumpetty, jump-

Lena Who?

I was recently armtwisted into writing up one of those ‘get to know you’ things for our bureau at work. While I love these when my friends email them to me, I’m not so sure about sharing my favourite colour [blue. Shh!] etc with colleagues. It threatens a breach in my work/life divide [yes I know I have really good friends at work. I decide where the divide is, ok?].

Well, one of the questions on the survey was “what’s your most embarrassing moment that you’d be willing to share?” My original answer was along the lines of “I don’t embarrass easily.” I may have to change that after Saturday night.

My friend tricia and I hosted a bunch of people for some British food (she’s a Scot). It was fun, and it was wildly amusing to see people examining mundane food items like pineapple and cheese on sticks, sausage rolls, and Eccles cakes as if they were extremely exotic fare. Imagine someone looking at chips and salsa as if it was monkey brains a la mode. However, people were very brave, and seconds were eaten, including of the marmite and cheese pinwheels (once Trish had labelled it ‘savoury’ after a couple of people had had traumatic experiences mistaking them for chocolate pastries (my poor friend R. accidentally tried one raw).

But to the embarrassment. I was chatting with friends, and a guy came over and introduced himself to our group: “Hi, I’m Peregrine.” [I have decided that hereon, I shall use aliases for everyone. Let me know if you have a request. Marie, you’re going to be “Erlene.”]

I said to Peregrine, “you look really familiar.”
He said “I should, we dated.”
Me “ha ha!”
Him, “No, really, we went out like four times.”

It was so awkward. I had absolutely no memory of this. I tried asking him questions to jog my memory, and no luck. My friend Arthur started giving him the third degree to prove him as an imposter, but no luck.

I tried to change the subject, “so, where do you work…er, these days…?”
He started telling me, then broke off after a minute or two: “You still have that look on your face, like ‘who IS this guy?’”
[self immediately attempted to rearrange expression to more polite one.]

Arthur: “Do you really date that much?”
Me: “No!”
Arthur: “Seems like you might not remember if you did.”