Ten fifteen. Work finished for the day. Well it is Friday. I try not to do anything on Fridays anyway especially the day after the annual end of season golf day out. Numbers out on the course were down a bit this year but we had a good turnout for dinner at the nineteenth hole (The Woodcocks) and afterwards at the Castle Hill Club where the ladies came to join us.
I have a busyish day ahead. Mostly shopping for our annual Not The Christmas Market Party and picking up my new shirt wot I had made for trefbash. Most of the booze is just a click and collect job from Tesco but I need to pick up some supplies from Fosters and have a relaxing browse around Waitrose. Ya never know. Something might tickle my fancy for dindins tonight. I have a chicken jalfrezi in the fridge as a backup.
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Had a minor issue at the click and collect. After I’d emptied about ten blue boxes into the car (not having done it since lockdown I hadn’t realised you had to bring bags) I tried carefully to stack the boxes on the trolley thing in order to return them to the store entrance. Course the trolley wheels hit a drain grating and the blue boxes went flying didn’t they?
It was only after I’d reloaded the trolley and rolled it over to the door that I saw that the boxes actually stacked neatly inside each other doh! Ah well it will be useful to know for the next time I do a click and collect, in another year probs. Or more.
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THG just informed me she blew thirty four quid on forty second class stamps and fourteen pounds on sending a few Christmas cards to the USA and Yoorp. It’s no wonder people are cutting back on sending cards at this time of the year. Actually I have no evidence on which to base that last statement but it sounds right.
You can just imagine people complaining. Oh no the bloomin Davieses have sent us a card. Quick, we’d better send them one back. If there is still time… 🙂
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Brought the kindling in to dry out. Will be lighting the fire tomorrow. When I did this last week it took ages for the kindling to catch alight despite having kept it under the roof of the woodstore. It must have been quite damp. Will probs buy some more coal when out and about. We have loads of logs but they aren’t as hot as coal. More atmospheric though. It’s all about striking a balance.
I need to take an axe to some of the logs we have at the bottom of the garden. See how I feel about it tomorrow. There is something quite satisfying about splitting logs. It’s one of those time immemorial jobs. You can imagine Davies ancestors putting in some time out the back of the farmhouse working on the logpile. They won’t have had a chainsaw to trim the larger logs into more sensible sizes. Using that old fashioned saw would have been hard work. Maybe we are all just wimps nowadays.
Next up O dawel ddinas Bethlehem (o dan y sêr di ri)
O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee to-night.
O morning stars, together
Proclaim the holy birth!
And praises sing to God the King,
And peace to men on earth.
For Christ is born of Mary,
And gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love.
How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him, still
The dear Christ enters in.
Where children pure and happy
Pray to the blessed Child;
Where misery cries out to thee,
Son of the mother mild;
Where Charity stands watching
And Faith holds wide the door
The dark night wakes, the glory breaks,
And Christmas comes once more.
O holy Child of Bethlehem!
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in,
Be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel!