Tis v cold in Lincolnshire this morning. Crisp. Brass monkeys beware. Freeze yer knackers off. Is that a saying? Am looking for phrases that suggest non optimal temperatures for those who prefer to wear shorts.
Time to get up. Thought for the day is on.
Now seeing ads for hip and knee operations. I’m sorted fanks. Date needs fixing but either last week of Jan or first in Feb. TBC.
Gonna make it a leisurely start to the day. Not much in the diary. Probs see if I can make progress with the family tree. But first the fast shall be broken.
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Shed is toasty. Only nine forty eight and I’m already at my desk. What’s that all about? Must be said my mornings are getting lazier and slower. I throttled back on work in May and it is taking some time to get into a routine and find other gainful activity. My idea was to write a book and this is still the plan but need to inject some discipline into the process.
Things are not helped by the fact that I need a hip replacement operation. One for sure but the other is on its way out as well. This will be scheduled over the next week or two with likely dates being last week in Jan or first in Feb. The benefits of private healthcare.
In the meantime my hips are v sore which I’m sure is contributing in no small way to the slowing down of life. Gotta be sorted. Sixty two, nearly sixty three is not an age to slide into oblivion.
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Tropical trefbash is three weeks tomorrow. Remember it is fancy dress or at least attire that conforms to the theme. An explorer’s outfit for example 🙂 I realise not everyone does fancy dress but on this occasion it might just be a Hawaiian shirt. Easy peasy really.
Some of the punters who go to the CCUK Xmas lunch beforehand will be wearing suits. It is easy enough to wear a Hawaiian shirt under the suit jacket innit. If Christmas jumpers are your thing, stick a Hawaiian shirt on under the jumper.
I’ll be in touch again before the big day but it is all looking good.
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Tomorrow is Beaujolais Nouveau Day fwiw. This isn’t something we particularly celebrate, especially considering the very young nature of the wine. However Dave Hopkins and I did take the afternoon off about forty years ago to go to Straits Wine bar for a slurp or two of the red. Dave’s wife Cecile joined us during her lunch break and also a couple of peeps, John and Becky, from the marketing department at work who once they realised Dave and I were not going back decided to bunk off for the afternoon themselves.
It was a seriously boozy lunch. No idea how many bottles we went through. However there was a natural end to it as in those days pubs and wine bars had to close at 3pm. Don’t worry though. John lived over the road so there we went. He polished off a decanter of whisky, me gin and Dave the brandy.
Now the beautiful bit of this story is that Dave had to go home to prepare for some dinner guests they had coming that evening. The Hopkinses dining table was just a circular piece of MDF. This needed cutting in half and a rectangular piece inserted to make the table bigger.
Dave caught the bus home and fell asleep on the sofa. The first guests to arrive had to saw the table top and fit the rectangular bit. That evening Dave was in the doghouse and could only manage glasses of water. Happy days.
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Quite interesting how family tree research can soak up huge amounts of time. I’ve spent two hours on Ancestry this morning and feel the progress is like wading through treacle. I come across people in others’ trees who are clearly the same as the ones in mine but with slightly different info – eg birth dates are out.
So the thing to do is connect with the other person to chat about their tree and understand their sources of info but it is a very long drawn out process. It’s only worth doing if you think they have more info than you.