2015 — 25 December: Friday
Glancing back over ¬blog entries for this day (which is, I gather, some form of festival for some people) I note I've had plenty of time to digest, adapt, and adjust to all sorts of changes in my peaceful retirement life. And many of these have turned out to be surprisingly pleasant when viewed in the correct light, or merely from a different angle. Not quite all, though. Today is my ninth Xmas without Christa. That certainly simplifies today's toast:1
"Absent friends" whoever, and wherever, they may be.
Does a cup of tea work for that? Well, I make the rules hereabouts so, yes, it does! Particularly with a festive biscuit.
First festive duty?
Well, since I've already cooked up a tasty little cranberry sauce, I shall now hoover up this week's three "Late Junction" BBC Radio 3 programmes and add them to my cache of such goodies. I particularly enjoy Mara Carlyle's style and curation of the show.
I've also just been invited to view my festive credit card statement. A day earlier than usual. Perhaps my bank is worried I've not been spending enough?
Isn't that what...
... Mrs Google is for?
Chimen, who was born in 1916 in what is now Belarus, himself evinced similar prowess: "In the rare instances," writes Abramsky, "when Chimen could not respond to a question off the top of his head, he knew exactly which of his tens of thousands of books contained the answer, what page the information was on, and where along his many double-stacked bookshelves the volume could be located."
I can relate to the "double-stacked" as they can be a particularly efficient means of concealment. Or a PITA.
I confess I initially missed the "Die Hard" character reference here. (Link.)
Back, in pouring rain...
... from a splendid meal to which I was very kindly invited JIT to provide the cranberry sauce. Which totally made all the difference, of course. The roads are only so empty because all the cars hereabouts are currently parked awkwardly close to my little drive. I don't like having to make three-point manoeuvres just to get on and off my own property, dagnabbit. But the machine that goes "beep" proved its worth.