Friday, December 22, 2006
Listless
December 22nd..22.44
There has been a long gap between blogs because I have been too busy- eating mainly. The season seems to demand certain ritual time consuming observances such as repeated shopping trips to stock up for the visit of friends and family which is quite likely to be thwarted by the blanket of fog of Gatwick and Cardiff which may delay the arrival of the girls from Brighton and Liverpool, even if they are able to walk after a week on the snowy(?) slopes of Austria. I have even found two Christmas trees which at least have each other for company in a deserted room which is too cold to occupy without the fire.
I cannot predict where I will spend New Year's eve but it is unlikely that I will avoid the trap which will bring me the 'inevitable disappointment' of the occasion culminating in me weaving my way back home after a night of excessive alcohol and noise. I know I should really un-plug the phone, barricade the front door and settle down on my own in an old cardy and slippers with a mug of ovaltine and maybe an Agatha Christie or listen to the third programme on the wireless but I'll probably succumb to the unlikely possibility that this year will be different and I will meet the woman of my dreams (again) and remain tolerably sober and coherent. So I probably won't be here, recording my reflections on the past year and my plans for 2007.
The past year has been a good one. There have been no tragedies amongst family and friends, no deaths nor diseases . There have been births and rejoicings.Final exams have been passed. There has been the allotment and this blog. It has been a good year for "gulp fiction". I have had a job all year which has been great fun. I don't seem to have lost much weight but I could if I really wanted to or needed to. I have been able to see most, but not all, of my oldest friends and if I ever made a resolution it would be to make a point of seeing them regularly. So for the next year I would hope to have more of the same, maybe with a bit more and wider travel and of course to sell my soul on E-bay and to be cloned.
I have just watched a tribute to Christopher Lloyd, the famous gardener who died earlier this year. Alan Titchmarsh introduced a fascinating programme about someone I would really like to have met. There is something almost infectious about such enthusiasts that I was left almost regretting that I had not become a gardener and I then started wondering if I would , for my next list, produce ten of my greatest regrets. Maybe I will do so later, but I realise that such a list is just too revealing though it might be quite interesting for that very reason.
I had to abandon Friedrich Glauser's "In Matto's Realm"- a Sergeant Studer mystery, because I became hopelessly bored. It wasn't even clear whether any crime had actually been committed or whether some chap had just broken his neck falling off a ladder. After a bit , I started wishing that they'd all break their necks and put us out of of our misery. There was no suspense, no excitement and no meals. "A Walk in the Dark" by Gianrico Carofiglio was an excellent tale and our hero, a lawyer, not a detective, actually eats meals though the food is not in the same class as that of Camilleri and Montalban and is not worth repeating the menu. I shall of course be briefly describing my own Christmas menu though we have all been bored by the celebrity chefs telling us how to cook a chicken or a turkey. If the BBC will part with several thousand pounds, I will let them into my kitchen to film me cooking a bird (cooking, not roasting- no smut please) or maybe frying an egg or making a crumble. This week I have been mostly eating Italian Salami, tomato salads, Gruyere, yogurts, bacon, Clementines and the widely under-rated celery which I will be promoting and possibly even growing in the next year. As far as we know it is not one of the dangerous vegetables such as lettuce or spinach and is not covered by the National Lettuce Initiative.
If I fail to publish a blog again this year, I wish any reader a happy new year.
There has been a long gap between blogs because I have been too busy- eating mainly. The season seems to demand certain ritual time consuming observances such as repeated shopping trips to stock up for the visit of friends and family which is quite likely to be thwarted by the blanket of fog of Gatwick and Cardiff which may delay the arrival of the girls from Brighton and Liverpool, even if they are able to walk after a week on the snowy(?) slopes of Austria. I have even found two Christmas trees which at least have each other for company in a deserted room which is too cold to occupy without the fire.
I cannot predict where I will spend New Year's eve but it is unlikely that I will avoid the trap which will bring me the 'inevitable disappointment' of the occasion culminating in me weaving my way back home after a night of excessive alcohol and noise. I know I should really un-plug the phone, barricade the front door and settle down on my own in an old cardy and slippers with a mug of ovaltine and maybe an Agatha Christie or listen to the third programme on the wireless but I'll probably succumb to the unlikely possibility that this year will be different and I will meet the woman of my dreams (again) and remain tolerably sober and coherent. So I probably won't be here, recording my reflections on the past year and my plans for 2007.
The past year has been a good one. There have been no tragedies amongst family and friends, no deaths nor diseases . There have been births and rejoicings.Final exams have been passed. There has been the allotment and this blog. It has been a good year for "gulp fiction". I have had a job all year which has been great fun. I don't seem to have lost much weight but I could if I really wanted to or needed to. I have been able to see most, but not all, of my oldest friends and if I ever made a resolution it would be to make a point of seeing them regularly. So for the next year I would hope to have more of the same, maybe with a bit more and wider travel and of course to sell my soul on E-bay and to be cloned.
I have just watched a tribute to Christopher Lloyd, the famous gardener who died earlier this year. Alan Titchmarsh introduced a fascinating programme about someone I would really like to have met. There is something almost infectious about such enthusiasts that I was left almost regretting that I had not become a gardener and I then started wondering if I would , for my next list, produce ten of my greatest regrets. Maybe I will do so later, but I realise that such a list is just too revealing though it might be quite interesting for that very reason.
I had to abandon Friedrich Glauser's "In Matto's Realm"- a Sergeant Studer mystery, because I became hopelessly bored. It wasn't even clear whether any crime had actually been committed or whether some chap had just broken his neck falling off a ladder. After a bit , I started wishing that they'd all break their necks and put us out of of our misery. There was no suspense, no excitement and no meals. "A Walk in the Dark" by Gianrico Carofiglio was an excellent tale and our hero, a lawyer, not a detective, actually eats meals though the food is not in the same class as that of Camilleri and Montalban and is not worth repeating the menu. I shall of course be briefly describing my own Christmas menu though we have all been bored by the celebrity chefs telling us how to cook a chicken or a turkey. If the BBC will part with several thousand pounds, I will let them into my kitchen to film me cooking a bird (cooking, not roasting- no smut please) or maybe frying an egg or making a crumble. This week I have been mostly eating Italian Salami, tomato salads, Gruyere, yogurts, bacon, Clementines and the widely under-rated celery which I will be promoting and possibly even growing in the next year. As far as we know it is not one of the dangerous vegetables such as lettuce or spinach and is not covered by the National Lettuce Initiative.
If I fail to publish a blog again this year, I wish any reader a happy new year.
# posted by Bob @ 2:43 pm 
