A Christmas Tale...

Hope you had a great Christmas and have a happy New Year people!

So, I've just got back from a sales shopping spree in Tunbridge Wells. My good friend Mr Mastercard was nice and bought me some stuff there! However, there is the small matter that what should have taken us 45 mins door-to-door, took us 2 hours. We got stuck in a major traffic jam on the outskirts of the town, that was the queue to get in to Royal Victoria Place. One hour and 15 later we got to the shops!!!

It was a very good spree overall, apart from the fact that the Disney Store has closed down since the last time I was there. Major :-(

So I worked pretty much all the time in the run-up to Christmas, including Christmas Eve and then Boxing Day, Bank Holiday Monday and I'm back in New Year's Eve and on my birthday too! Hoooray. Then I'll be 22... Hmmmm.

Sooo, Christmas....

Weeel, we did our big food shop on the 23rd - having pre-ordered the turkey! Then the parents did quite a lot of the cooking on Christmas Eve when I was at work dealing with all of the genuinely miserable last-minute shoppers. When I got home I wrapped my presents and then we were all ready for the big day! It panned out like this...

9am I'm roused from my slumber by Tom texting me, so I suppose there was little else for it - time to get up.

By 10am I was all ready and downstairs. On go the Christmas lights. The first argument of the day broke out over how many parawns we need. Food prep begins - the dogs look on in anticipation of what is to come - out comes the sprout tree, swede and carrot, roaties, prawns and parsnips.

Come 11am kitchen activity is going on in earnest. Out comes the custard, cranberry sauce, seafood sauce, caramellised onion etc. Veg makes its was in to saucepans and on to baking trays. Plates are laid out for the first course, the prawn cocktail.

Half an hour later sees me grappling with the sprout tree. Mum rejoices that the annual hunt for the cake forks ahs been rendered uneccessary - she found then in October and had left them out specially!

12 midday Rejoicing cut short as an argument erupts over the location of the corkscrew. Swearing joins cacaphony of arguing as Mum trips over the dog. Dad opens the wine with a multi-tool, when he turns to get a glass, the dogs lick the bottle top. The wine is tipped away as its off and we open Cava (disgusting) and a Rosé Lambrusco to have with dinner.
It is also suspected that the seafood sauce is off, but we add it liberally to the prawns anyway.

By 12.30pm Mum is ready to dish up the dinner and also does the dogs version at the same time. We open a third bottle of wine - all without a corkscrew. Heated debate arises over which way to point a cork when pulling out of a bottle.

1pm We have an argument over who should clean up the swede/carrot mash Mum has just dropped on the floor. The dog eats it off the floor, so all is well.

The dogs dinner is put down and we sit down to our Prawn Cocktail at 1.30pm and, finally, at 1.45pm we eat dinner. We're done by 2.30pm and agree to postpone dessert until later. The dogs gleefully finish off the leftovers. Present opening begins, only pausing for the Queen's Speech.

5pm We all agree on the fact that Christmas TV is shockingly bad and put on a DVD - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

On the present front, I got my lovely red DS and four games for it, which has kept me unequivocally occupied ever since. That was my main present and then I got some face cream, fluffy socks, a book about Christmas and money from parential friends.

So under the tree now are my birthday presents - I know what they are, but I'm not gonna say, because that would spoil all the suprise!! Let's just say that its all looking very pink!

So I had today off and I 'm off tomorrow, before a couple more days of work. Then the great occasion on the horizon is my birthday trip to London with my dear friends Sarah and Tom, for the weekend. More when I have birthday-age to report.

**HAPPY 2010**

2009 in the blink of an eye

Well, faithful blogites, it is almost 2010 - a new year and a new decade! But what has 2009 done to earn its place in the forefront of my memory? Let's take a little look...

0 I turned 21! That is a definate milestone and the last real age-related one until I turn 30, which is not in 8 years time!

0 I interviewed for Disney for a second time and got WaitListed for a second time. A lot of very quality people who I've met flew out to Florida to work. I have lived a Disney dream through them.

0 I went to Paris. I spent a lovely weekend there with my coursemates in the beautiful March weather. I had a great time and I learnt some great things about myself such as I can manage alone in France, speaking French and navigating. I love Paris as a city - it has so much to offer and I never grow tired of seeing it.

0 I wrote my dissertation. 10,000 words of academia that I just fell in love with as I wrote it. I fell in love with it again when it was printed out - the photos all glossy. I fell in love 100 times over when it was bound. Gosh it was a marvel!

0 I finished 3 years of university, some of the best years of my life, and graduated. Graduation was almost enough to make me want to do postgrad study - but not quite!!

0 Did kids work at Keswick, really got in to invigilation and helping at Cantell and in one marathon session, managed a GSMA session (totally illegally) with just one other person and a bunch of older kids I don't usually work with!

0 Sarah came out of hospital in July. It's really good that she's out and full of joie de vivre as well as plans for the future. She deserves every success.

0 I've been working at Argos a lot, I also claimed Job Seekers allowance a lot (not at the same time though, as that would be illegal). They were both good experiences for me and broadened my horizons.

0 I decided in good time, what I wanted to do for my 22nd birthday, and organised it. See my previous entry for full details. I'm also getting really cool pressies - a red DS for Christmas and (I hope!!) and iPod for my birthday. When you get to my (grand old) age, you don't really want much else.

@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-@-

So 2009 has been a very nice year to be a part of, with great experiences and great people to share it with. I'm full of a curious sense of expectation for this new year, new decade that is approaching and feel it could be an important one.

So Happy New Year everybody, have a good one! Merry Christmas too, just remember the true meaning of the celebration. Yes, Christmas is a time to do good deeds, to be with family, to celebrate, give, recieve and the like. But its only cos of what God did over 2000 years ago that we have life, and life to the full anyway. Jesus is the reason for the season, let's not forget that very first Christmas day!

Birthday Plans

Well I'm very excited about this and so it warrants a special blog entry for the occasion!

I thought quite a bit about what I wanted to do and finally landed on the idea of a weekend in London as a treat to myself.

So... the plan is to take the train to London on Friday and do a little bit of shopping. Oxford Street, Friday afternoon, shopping. It beats Saturday or Sunday on Oxford or Regents Street in the midst of *the sales*!

Saturday is active day! I'm assuming at this point that Tom and Sarah will be joining me and we'll do some touristy things: museums or attractions etc. Shakeaway will have to be visited if I have anything to do with it! Harrods... Hamleys... etc.
But the piece de resistance will come with the evening's entertainment! Dinner out and then front row seats, in the circle, at We Will Rock You! Which has to be my favourite musical of all time.
Sunday, being the day of rest that it is, will be the day I travel home. Before that though, I'd like to church it up if I can. I'll have to take the day off of work of course, but since I'm working on my actual birthday day, it kind of evens out I guess.