It’s nearly over

The Solstice has passed, the days will begin to get longer soon and the commercial nightmare of Christmas will be over.

It’ll be safe to go to town again, the crazed shoppers will have calmed down and (aside from another buying frenzy before the shops close for one day at New Year) we can get back to normal. Looking at some of the trolleys in Tesco this week you’d think the shops were closing forever.

Everything is ready here, Christmas was mostly achieved online and despite a lot of delays due to weather, it all finally got sent out or delivered to where it was meant to be. I have one more present to send out, for my son, and I’ll see him at the weekend. He’ll also get a copy of ‘The Good, the Bad, and Santa’ to cheer him through his Christmas dinner.

I had no idea what to get for anyone (except CStM, she has so many interests it’s actually easy to find something) so I went full random. Someone is getting the entire Adam West ‘Batman’ collection. Someone is getting ‘Die Hard’ because it’s a Christmas film. Books on the way to people include ‘The Walking Bread’ and ‘Games on Thrones’. Someone is getting a toaster that also boils eggs at the same time – I was so impressed I bought another one to keep here.

There is a card game called ‘Exploding Kittens’ brought to my attention by CStM. Someone is getting that too.

Speaking of books, I hope the author copies of this latest anthology have all arrived by now. Although I sent my niece a birthday card in early December which took a week to arrive and that was before the Christmas rush combined with snow/ice. I know one set has arrived. I hope they all have by now. I did put a lot of effort into getting it ready in time and actually beat my own deadline for once. It would be a shame if the weather buggered it up.

The ice is mostly gone. There are still a few patches around the house but it doesn’t look like this any more…

Even with four wheel drive, there were a few days when we didn’t leave the house. There was no post delivered for over a week – the farm track leading to the house had a frictionless wet glacier on it. Good thing this place grows barley (which all goes to be malted and made into whisky) and wheat (for bread and pastry and deep-frying batter) and has no animals. I’d have had to look after the buggers – you couldn’t even get a tractor up that road.

We have no turkey. We’re having duck cooked the Danish way with a stuffing made of a mixture of pork and beef mince. Yeah, stuff that thing with more meat. Potatoes fried in butter and sugar. Maybe a little salad for garnish. Maybe not, we’ll see.

This is probably the only Danish recipe that doesn’t have bacon in it. We’ll add some.

I’ve noticed the stuff happening in the world. The failure to ban smoking in prisons, the latest attack in Australia where one Muslim drove into a lot of people while another Muslim, carrying a bag of knives, filmed it. This is all put down to ‘mental health and drugs’ as if anyone is really going to believe it. The filming of the attack and the bag of knives knocks the ‘not premeditated’ theory into a pile of horseshit that would make the curator of the Aegean stables gasp in awe. The Islamapologists will jump on it though. Anything to keep their narrative going, no matter how many die. They’ll still be denying Islam is a problem until the last stone puts them out of our misery.

What with book frenzy, snow and ice frenzy and then Christmas last minute panic I have been over-occupied in recent weeks. And I still have to fill out my tax form. I will have to pay some this time and I don’t want to fund any more of the shit this country is doing. I feel like an accessory to treason by paying it.

I’ll have to though. Otherwise I’ll go to jail.

At least I can smoke in there…