'Tis the season to be jolly

Advent is upon us and the Christmas season is now officially here! I love Christmas – the fun of finding the perfect gift for family and friends, carol singing, wishing people all the best for the season (instead of being grouchy because it’s cold and wet and wintry), hoping that it might just snow, lighting Advent candles, putting up the tree (Michael brought home a big tree this year – our first proper-sized Christmas tree!), midnight mass – a moment in the hustle and bustle to remember the true meaning of Christmas – and being able to focus on the things that really matter.

Medieval banquet

Our work Christmas party this year took place at The Medieval Banquet in St Katharine’s Dock which was so much fun. There was entertainment between each of the four courses – juggling, singing, dancing wenches; we bellowed out “Wench!” to summon our serving wench whenever we needed anything, drank soup directly from the bowl, banged the tables noisily to show our appreciation of the entertainment, toasted King Henry, wassailed almost every time we raised our tankers of ale and finished off the evening by returning to the 21st century and hitting the dancefloor. It was raucous and rowdy and highly enjoyable.

A night out

Going on a night out involves too much decision making sometimes. What to wear? Suddenly my wardrobe which is so full that I have taken over half of Michael’s wardrobe seems to contain very little clothes after all. How can I have that many clothes and still have nothing to wear?! Then deciding what to do with my hair (so much easier when I had short hair!), which shoes to wear… Michael just walks in, grabs a clean shirt and pair of trousers, puts on smart shoes and is done. The male approach to these things is so much simpler!

Helicopter havoc

Michael has a new model helicopter. It looks pretty much the same as his other small helicopter but apparently it requires more skill to fly it. Judging by the fact that he’s just flown it into my leg and shredded my tights, clearly he has yet to perfect the art of flying this one. It’s just as well he has another helicopter flying lesson tomorrow. One day I might be able to sit in the lounge and write without having to dodge small flying objects or feeling the need to remove all breakable items. Oh well, I love him anyway.

The Last 5 Years

We went to see a production of “The Last 5 Years” this evening. I’d never seen it before but I’d been given the CD soundtrack a couple of years ago and really loved the songs so when I found out that the show was being performed locally, I jumped at the chance to finally see it. It tells the story of a couple who meet, marry and eventually separate but told from both perspectives – one starting at the end of the marriage and working backwards and the other working forwards from the beginning. It was a good production – definitely recommended.

Being useful

I’m generally at my most content when I feel that I am being useful. I remember deciding when I was a teenager that if I couldn’t be popular, then being needed was the next best thing. This thought has pretty much been my life’s motto ever since: it’s when I feel like I have no purpose that I start feeling low. I’ve been playing the piano for rehearsals lately as our rehearsal pianist left and the new one has not yet started and I’ve really been enjoying because I suddenly feel useful again. It’s good to be enjoying rehearsals again.

Moody blues

One of my biggest flaws is my mercurial temperament – I can go weeks being calm and rational and then suddenly the mood swings flare up again over something fairly minor. Often it is something to do with the flat being messier than I like it to be (which is the case most of the time, but it doesn’t bother me that much when I’m calm). Michael tries to help but then I get irritated because he is doing things his way rather than mine. I need to learn to appreciate the helpfulness and not nit-pick at the method of implementation.

Lazy day

There are some days when I feel really productive and get lots of things done, and others when I seem to come down with a chronic case of can’t-be-bothereditis and doing anything at all feels like too much effort. Today has been one of the latter days, although on reflection, it has been a little productive – I have ordered a couple of Christmas presents online and started making a couple more presents. I shouldn’t beat myself up over having the odd lazy day – I can’t be super-productive all the time and sometimes I just need to sit down and relax.

Tap exam

Today was the dreaded tap exam – so I started the morning at a last-minute tap class going over the steps one more time before the exam in the afternoon. Fortunately, it went reasonably well – I had a blank moment in the timestep and forgot how to do a reverse timestep (just as the examiner was looking my way) but fortunately the rest of the routine was ok, and the rest of the exercises and two solo routines (jive at five and the dance) went reasonably well. We won’t get the results until after Christmas – fingers crossed they will be okay.

Church quiz

Michael and I were involved with hosting a quiz night at church this evening – in charge of sound, projection (for the scoreboard) and doing the marathon (US states and capitals) and music rounds. It seemed to go quite well although some of the questions were a little surprising and not very appropriate for a church quiz (for instance, “Who was the author of Fanny Hill?” – it seems we’re a clean-minded bunch though as no-one got the correct answer!) One of our pub quiz team-mates came along and was in the winning team; hopefully the winning streak will continue into Tuesday!