The Kitchen
At the moment all my ‘spare’ time seems to be spent
on the d****d kitchen. I can’t believe it has taken so long. And now, believe it or not we have two more
leaks. One in the bathroom and one under the sink where the pipes were
disturbed for the new sink installation.
Did you ever do something you regret you started? Still, I’ve finished all the scrambling
around I’m going to do before Christmas.
The kitchen is fit to store our utsensils and cooking pots and to make
Christmas dinner. That will do for now.
So now it’s time to start thinking about how to put up decorations without Ivy
taking them down again…
Silly Spammers
I love those spammers who leave a comment on every
single one of my blogs saying how much they like it and how it resembles their
own. I’m not sure that my recipe blog,
word blog, book blog, Exeter blog, Pensby blog and Hebridean blog can all have
much in common with anyone else’s single blog but what really amuses me is they
don’t leave their blog address. They
have Google+ enabled. As a result you
can’t see their profile or the blog / website address that they are trying to
direct you to. All you get is their
Google+ page with a suggestion that if you want to make friends with them you
send them a friend request. Like, I’m
that stupid???
Harry Patch
When Partner-who-drinks-tea and I were in Wells in
October we saw the grave of Harry Patch.
Harry was the last British Tommy to survive the horror of the trenches
of World War I. He died aged 111 in 2009. He never forgot those lost and always
made sure to remember lost Germans as well as Allied troops.
A quote from Harry: “Irrespective of the uniforms we wore, we were all victims."
Partner-who-loves-tea
Partner-who-loves-tea has had a bad bout of flu and
is still nowhere near recovered. Indeed,
in some ways she’s just as bad now as she was a week or more ago. One of the side-effects of this has been her
stopping drinking tea; i.e. tea as we know it – black tea with milk and
sugar. She has transferred her affection
to green tea which previously was only an occasional tipple for her. I don’t count green tea as proper tea and at
this rate I may have to think of a new name for my partner…
When do you open your Christmas presents?
We open ours on Christmas morning but it seems a lot
of people do it on Christmas Eve. I
would be interested to know whether you have a particular family time or
a national tradition as to when they are opened.
Christmas morning here. Can't imagine families with children doing it on Christmas Eve! The children would be up all night playing with their new toys and when would Santa Clause come?
ReplyDeleteDawn Treader has the answer below!
DeleteGreen tea, Is very good in a vacuum flask it doesn't go bitter.
ReplyDeleteGoogle+ is beyond me....I wish the spammers were.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that Google+ is beyond.
DeleteWe open them on Christmas morning.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, my sympathies to Jo. I remember too well all that a bad flu can involve. Is it to do with hope to get more antioxidant effect that she's switched to green tea, or just a matter of the cold affecting how things taste? I drink both black and green tea myself. This time of year my favourite is a special green tea blend sold in my favourite tea shop.
ReplyDeleteSorry you had so much trouble with getting the new kitchen sorted. I wish you a peaceful Christmas without any more trouble.
I think you already know that in Sweden we open our presents on Christmas Eve. If there are children in the family, Father Christmas usually comes knocking on the door himself some time in the late afternoon/early evening. He's not likely to come before 4 p.m. though, because at 3 pm every Christmas Eve, ever since the early 1960s, Swedish television sends a classic Disney Christmas special (the same every year). And even in this multimedia age, people still watch it. Especially the grownups who have done so every year since their own childhood!
The only absolute traditional TV in the UK is the Queen'speech for ten minutes at 3p. m. on Christmas Day. That was begun by her father in the 1940s I think. Disney, Carry On films (and now Strictly Come Dancing) are all on but are moveable feasts.
DeleteWhat Disney film is it, DT?
DeleteA Christmas special entitled From all of us to all of you. An hour of short films + snippets from longer ones. Basically the same every year except a snippet from the latest Disney film at the end.
DeleteI am sorry to hear that Jo has the flu. I drink both black
ReplyDeleteand green tea. Green tea with lemon and honey seems to help when I am feeling poorly. I think that they are both tea and she should keep her title-if I get a vote on this!
Re:Christmas presents-When I was a child,we always opened presents on Christmas morning after church. Later on we did it on Christmas Eve. In recent years we have been doing it on Christmas day in the afternoon. It all depends on where we are that day.
I reckon if you read my blog you get a vote, Donna!
DeletePlease tell Jo how sorry I am that her flu is still with her. Miserable stuff. I had it once when I was too sick to even read. I think that was what scared Rob the most.
ReplyDeleteRe: opening presents.
When I was a child, we spent Christmas Eve with my father's Norwegian parents and opened their presents then.
On Christmas Day we went to my mother's family home and opened presents then.
As a child, I thought this was great -- two Christmases!
Now, we open some of the things on Christmas Eve when it's just Rob and me, and open the rest of the stuff on Christmas Day when we're with our daughter and her family.
But whatever you decide to do, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas -- and a germ-free one for poor Jo. And a healthy and Happy New Year. As Tiny Tim said, "God bless every one!" xoxoxo
Please tell poor Jo to hurry up and feel better soon. I drank lots of juices and water and ginger tea during my awful bout of the flu.
ReplyDeleteSanta will skip your house if Jo is still under the weather, since he can't afford to get sick at this hectic time of the year.
As children we were allowed to open one gift early on Christmas morning before church services.
After lunch we would all gather around the tree and open our presents together. My dad would be the present chief.
Get well soon Jo!!
I hope Santa doesn't skip our house. Perhaps he'll just wear a face mask!
DeleteAww, poor Jo! How miserable for her! I'm glad that she can keep the green tea down. I don't know if it's any "better" than any other, but it's fluid, and that's good.
ReplyDeleteHopefully, she'll feel well enough to open alll those presents on Christmas morning that you've given her. :)
Christmas Eve over here (I have blogged about that a few times in the past, for instance here:
ReplyDeletehttp://librarianwithsecrets.blogspot.de/2010/12/reporting-directly-from.html )
and then - for me - again on Christmas morning :-)
Sorry to hear Jo is still struggling with the flu. I hope she'll be back on her feet soon. All I have to complain about at the moment is a snotty nose.
I like these folk who manage to get two bites at the cherry, Librarian! Very sneaky.
DeleteJo has asked me to thank you all for your good wishes. Fingers crossed for some improvement soon.
ReplyDeleteHarry Patch was right.
ReplyDeleteI don't get a Christmas present because I'm Dutch. I got a present from Sinterklaas on December the 5th. I opened it on that day. Mind, if I did get a present because of Christmas I would open it as soon as I got my hands on it!
I have a recently acquired friend who is Dutch. I only found out about Sinterklaas's visit on December 5th so was a bit late but maybe her little one will open an extra one on Christmas Day.
DeleteP.S. Welcome Branwen. I put your profile from your blog into Google Translate. It's amazing how it managed to mangle the English but I got the drift of it.
DeleteI've been ill a few times at Christmas. It is NOT pleasant for anyone.
ReplyDeleteMy children and their families will open on Christmas Eve. Then some will go with me to the vigil Mass, which usually includes a children's choir. :)
When I was a child, my mother worked long hours so we opened when she got home on Christmas Eve so that she would be able to sleep late the next day.
Chamomile tea calms my tummy. I've now acquired a taste for white tea too.
Merry Christmas to you and Jo. I hope she feels well again soon.
Hugs to Jo! I like green and black tea both, also white tea and my favorite of all is that red tea - you know, the one that comes in a big bottle, with a cork? Yeah, GRAPE tea! That's the ticket!
ReplyDeleteAs for presents, we open them either Christmas Eve, or Christmas morning, or Christmas evening, or three days after Christmas, or the following week some time... whenever we can find a time that no one is at work. Holidays? What are those?
Two bites at the cherry, eh? Sounds a little kinky to me. 8-)
I really feel for those who work Christmas. Other holidays don't seem so bad.
DeleteWhen I worked (I did one time, long ago) I was on call for major emergencies. Guess when we always had a major emergency. The best one was something to do with drunken chemical plant workers not shutting valves properly, etc, after their Christmas eve lunch. Sprayed hazardous blue chemical over a motorway and all the passers-by. It turned out to be harmless - if somewhat lasting - we had blue verges for months after. Worst one - someone in a multi-storey block deciding to kill themselves by means of the gas oven on Christmas Eve and the consequent demolition of half the block.
Emerghency workers get praised and feted for working the holidays but what folk tend to forget is that there are important jobs like yours which still have to be done come rain or shine and get no credit at all.
Main Lady and I got the tree erected at Centenarian's home in the living room. I thought it looked a bit wobbly, but perhaps not. We turned our backs for a moment and Centenarian's cat Angel managed to topple the tree. She may have tried climbing.
ReplyDeleteWell, we got it back up, but this time I affixed the tree to the tree stand and provided two fish line guy wires for some added stability. Angel is hiding in the kitchen. I hope she tells the other two cats about her undignified ordeal.
Merry Christmas to you, Sir. Thank you for writing.
When I commented earlier, I forgot to mention how clever I thought your blog title was: scRamble as a take on your overall title Rambles...wouldn't want you to think I hadn't noticed! :o)
ReplyDeleteHappy Christmas! xoxox
When everyone has had breakfast and the turkey is in he oven. Have not changed this in 53 years. As a child at home it was after breakfast with the rest in the evening at Grandma's.
ReplyDelete