The House Husband

I haven’t reported on the shower. I shall do so now.

The most disconcerting thing about the the bathroom is that it is all glass. The walls around it and internal the walls around the shower and toilet. These latter walls are frosted as a concession to people who are not that keen on watching people on the loo. For this reason, I tend to use the toilet downstairs, off the foyer.

The shower has a waterfall rosette with great pressure and temperature – a true delight. However, because of the dedication to design that is apparent in every inch of the room, it does not drain very well. Previously, the rest of the bathroom became flooded when the water didn’t drain away fast enough, allowing the small lip (about the thickness of a single tile) that is supposed to contain the water, to become pointless.

It’s all very design over usefulness: Looks well funky, underperforms to Bill-O. Still, the pressure and temperature make having a shower a joy.

Anyway, following on from yesterday’s huge day, we decided to take it a lot easier today. So we went for a stroll through Jewish Town with the idea of visiting the cemetery and maybe a synagogue. It was then we realised it was Saturday. Jews don’t do anything on a Saturday. So everything was closed. Even the lights were off.

We found the wonderful Franz Kafka statue. Franz was born in Prague back in 1883. He wrote The Trial, a book I loved back when I was a younger. Of course I just had to pose next to it.

Gaz & Franz Kafka

Still, it was lovely looking at all the art nouveau buildings. We walked all the way down to the river (Prague is not very big) admiring everything.

Art Nouveau buildings

At the river we saw where the boat tours leave from. There are a LOT of boats!

River boats on the river

We walked the length of the ‘posh’ street, winding up back at the Old Town Square for a coffee stop in Starbucks before heading back to the hotel.

Late in the afternoon, we went to a Christmas concert at the Municipal House. It was lovely. What felt like a complete string section, delighted us with a selection of well known classics from Dvorak to Strauss, Pachabel’s Canon to A Little Night Music. It was a lovely way to wile away an hour.

Mirinda’s disappointing Christmas
As everyone knows, Christmas in this part of Europe is celebrated on Christmas Eve. So, back in England, we organised to have a traditional Czech Christmas Eve dinner. I had already been informed that the Czechs buy a carp a bit before Christmas, let it loose in the bath until Christmas Eve when it is ritually slaughtered, sliced and cooked for dinner.

I was surprised not to see my dinner floating in a bath by the doors of the restaurant.

The restaurant was the Francouzscka restaurant at the Municipal House and it is absolutely gorgeous. If anyone was in the market for a horrid meal, these surroundings almost made it worth it.

We arrived a wee bit early. In our country, this is usually ok and, if they’re still clearing the table, the waiter or maitre d’ will leave you at the bar with a drink. At this place, firstly, there’s no-one at the door. This is going to be a problem because the devil ALWAYS makes work for idle hands…Mirinda’s being no exception. There was a sign regarding the strictly forbidden taking of photogaphs which fell out of its holder when she thought it contained a bell for summoning staff.

The sign flapped, conspicuously to the floor. We waited at the door for a while longer. Eventually a woman turned up, who I recognised as the hostess from the cafe opposite. She picked the sign up off the floor and immediately set about repositioning it in the frame from whence it had been manhandled by my lovely wife.

In most expensive restaurants, this would have been inconsequentual. The hostess would have attended to us first, then worried about the silly sign. Not at this restaurant. She wrestled it back into place and then asked me, with a huge dollop of insinuation, if I knew who did it. I was tempted to say it was the cat but instead, looked confused and said I didn’t know.

I mean, seriously, who is going to admit to it? She sounded like the culprit was going to get sent to the salt mines. As it was, Mirinda reckons she went and checked the CCTV because she was a bit surly to her during the coat checking procedure.

We were still early, of course, so she ordered us to wait, with a gruff face. We sat in a big leather lounge which was quite comfortable but couldn’t manage the gruff faces…we were enjoying her insane service attitude far too much.

Eventually our table was ready and we were shown to a lovely spot (I felt, for sure, we’d be put near the toilets because of the sign thing) by the window. The service, from this point was fine, while the food took a turn for the worse.

We had four courses all of fish (trout mousse, carp, fish soup and Zander…which is closely related to perch) and a dessert which Mirinda was worried was toffee coated goldfish but turned out to be gingerbread with caramel ice cream.

The Czech’s love their carp. Mirinda thought it tasted like mud. It has a lot of small bones which make it quite awful to eat. It was not as tasty as turkey.

To be perfectly honest, the best course was the bread. The bread was spectacularly lovely. We ate all the bread. Oddly we were given a strange swirl of salt free butter sprinkled with salt crystals.

I am not being at all harsh. On the plus side, the wine was fantastic. I was guessing since it was mostly in Czech and I was hoping it would be, at the very least, passable. It was superb. I’m going to see if I can get it in the UK, it was so nice.

We are totally looking forward to a turkey Christmas dinner tomorrow night.

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A very merry Christmas to anyone and everyone reading this with very special wishes to Audrey and Kevin who I know read me every day xxx

When did the rest of the world go mad for German Christmas markets? We’d never heard of them and then, wham, suddenly they’re everywhere. They even have one at Lower Loxley in The Archers.

I might be wrong and they’ve always been around but, seriously, I only started noticing them the last few years. Don’t get me wrong, they are seriously festive and add a certain Christmas feel to wherever they happen to be, particularly if there’s an ice rink nearby as well.

There’s an ice rink at Winchester, just behind the cathedral. It sits in the middle of the German Christmas market. This market has been going since 2006 and is apparently ‘…one of the best in Europe‘. We went to Winchester today to visit it. On Breakfast this morning, we were reliably informed that 11 million people would be out shopping today. I’m pretty sure they were all in Winchester.

Wandering around the market

Mirinda had her hot chestnuts straight from an Italian hot chestnut seller while I went for a German bratwurst, dreaming wistfully of Munich, from a not so German bratwurst seller. The sauerkraut was very nice though and made up for the below par sausage. Mirinda said the chestnut skins slipped off perfectly, providing her with outstanding chestnuts. I wouldn’t know about that – I hate chestnuts.

Before we arrived at the market, we had our usual wander by the river and passed Wolvesley Castle, stopped and chatted to the ducks for a bit and generally wondered how nice it would be to live in Winchester…

Looks like dinner to me...

There were quite a few people wandering the back streets who had obviously grown weary of the crowds and ventured further afield to find some (relative) solitude near the place where Jane spent her last days. We thought it was a bit more crowded than usual but that was nothing when we reached the market.

It was pretty much impossible to walk against the general tide of people so we simply followed the flow and travelled clockwise round the whole thing. It was lovely seeing all the happy delighted faces; even the elves were happily wandering around with backpacks full of mulled wine to chase any chills away.

Glühwein against the cold

After wandering around the entire market almost twice, we continued on around the cathedral and towards the high street. We love Winchester high street, the butter cross, the lack of traffic, Reeve the Baker and coffee shop…where we stopped for a coffee/hot chocolate and the nicest mince pies I’ve had in a long while. Seriously good pastry and the mince wasn’t too sweet. Highly recommended.

It was then back out into the cold to enjoy the Christmas lights and remind ourselves that we’ll probably be wandering around a Christmas market this time next week as well.

Glittering tiaras

Last Christmas, Mirinda & I were in different Australian states, missing each other. It was the first Christmas we had spent apart in 19 years of marriage. While it was great to spend it with our families, we both missed each other a lot. What made it worse was that we’d planned to go away, just the two of us, to somewhere on the continent.

Of course, all our plans were quickly altered with Claire and dad in hospital and Mirinda was in Sydney while I sweltered on Kawana Island.

Well, we were discussing what we’d like to do this Christmas today and, before we knew it, we’d booked the dogs into the kennel, booked flights and a hotel, and booked airport transfers. It didn’t take very long and, seemingly on a whim, we are now going to Prague for Christmas.

We are now getting quite excited about it. I need to remember to get the Rough Guide tomorrow.

Behind the church

Mirinda went looking for a seamstress today. Rather than stand around looking like a one-armed moron, went for a wander through the churchyard on my way to Starbucks. As you can see, the sky was very blue.

This is the first Christmas I have spent apart from Mirinda and it is very odd. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas. That’s not to say it hasn’t been lovely spending it with my family. It was lovely having lunch with Trace & Bob, Michael & Emma, Chris, mum & dad. Particularly given that mum prepared a lovely roast lamb. But it’s not quite the same as spending it with the person you’ve been married to for almost 20 years.

Though, while it’s odd for me, it’s going to be pretty dire for Mirinda and her family with Claire in the hospital. And so I feel torn. Here, there, on our own. Christmas is an odd time. For an atheist, it is a time for reflection and family. But how do you spread yourself thin enough? It’s not possible to be in all places at once.

The weather for Christmas day was vile. According to Joanne, who I spoke to on the phone, it is deliciously cold in Melbourne. How annoyerating is that? Damn the weather gods. And Mitchie is enjoying snow. This is going to be a short entry.

An awful Christmas photo

I should explain why the photo is so awful. I am still learning how to use my new camera and I couldn’t figure out how to set it for longer than 2 seconds with the self-timer (I have since worked it out). This meant I had to race to get to my seat each time – this was the third attempt and the best of them. I have also focused on something odd, like the front of the table or the work bench. I don’t know. Sorry, it’s rubbish.

And a little something else.

Mum tells me that, in her day, if anyone did their laundry on Christmas Day, they’d be the talk of the street (and not in a good way). The people in the house behind mum & dad did their washing on Christmas day and hung it out to dry (waste of time that was), which was bad enough (I’m going to put a notice in the next community newsletter about her) but I have since found out that Trace did as well!!!! Oh, how standards have slipped.

Today was as gorgeous as yesterday was grim. Sun and blue skies, though bitterly cold, made for excellent photo ops. And, as Mirinda claims I do not include enough pictures of our lovely town in my blog, I aim to remedy that.

Here’s the castle as seen looking up Castle Street. As we approach winter, so the trees stop hiding the battlements.

Looking up Castle Street

Next we have the Lion and Lamb. Starbucks is through the left arch and Waitrose is the other side of the arches. I note with horror that the Christmas decorations have already started to appear.

The Lion & Lamb

And speaking of Christmas decorations, the front page of our local paper last week featured, as it’s main front page photograph, the Elphicks Christmas window. Elphicks is our own department store (I’m pretty sure there’s only one). So I thought I’d better include it. It looks as though Santa has dumped the sleigh for this year.

Elphicks Christmas window

Our beautiful church (St Andrew’s) taken from the car park opposite the Maltings. While it looks better from the church yard, the sun wasn’t in the right place and I thought this looked lovely with the other buildings around it.

St Andrew's church

And, finally, Gostrey Meadow with the beautiful willow tree. In the middle of the day, when the weather’s nice, this place is swarming with people and the swings and roundabouts, teeming with toddlers. It’s a favourite with Rafi.

Gostrey Meadow

Tomorrow is supposed to be wet and dreary again so this might be it!

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I finished building the auricula theatre today (it took me most of the day). It’s assembled and painted and presently residing in the shed. Now all I have to do is fix it to the fence. Here’s what it looked like. I used the obelisk to prop it up while I painted.

The auricula theatre - painted but not hung

Rain all day. Wet, drizzly, miserable, grey-skied day. Not pleasant. Pity I haven’t put my weather station outside yet. There would have been some good readings today.

My trip into town was delayed today due to my sleeping in and having to wait for the Sainsbury’s delivery. Normally they arrive a few minutes early (ie before the hour stated) but today he was ten minutes before the end of the hour. Also he didn’t chat or smile like usual. I have to assume they are still catching up with the pre-Christmas deliveries that were seriously hampered by the snow. Anyway, he arrived and delivered; I donned raincoat and hat and, finally, I was away.

Farnham was reasonably crowded but not ridiculously so. I was only forced into the gutter a few times by mad pram drivers. It was the umbrellas that overcrowded the town today.

I hate umbrellas. I wouldn’t mind if they were only as wide as the person beneath it but oh no, people have to brandish these massive golf umbrellas like some sort of weird machismo talisman. You can tell from the smug look on their faces what they are thinking: “Ha! Look at the size of mine! Jealous lot. See how successful I am? See how much of the pavement I can claim? HA!”

Inwardly, I groan. It would almost be worth it to get poked in the eye by one just so you could sue the inconsiderate bastards. In fact, I take great malicious pleasure when a big wind comes up and blows them inside out. Sadly this doesn’t happen very often.

And why do they keep them over their heads when they are walking under things? Or standing under shelters talking to someone?

Anyway, the high street was full of mad prams and gigantic umbrellas, ruining my day. OK, not really ruining my day. I don’t let that sort of thing get to me. Oh no, there’s far more important things. Like Starbuck’s running out of hazelnut syrup!

Well, I can happily report, that that particular dilemma has been resolved. Today they had a new batch and almond was not forced down my throat. All my Starbuck’s chums were working today. Beccy, Alex, young American guy, big smiley guy who looks a bit like Nigel, elf girl. It was nice to be greeted by so many people I only know through my choice of coffee. And none of them know my name. Totally weird.

I mean how do you get to the point where they do know your name? I’ve often wondered. Does it happen because you have mutual friends? Or because someone yells out to you across the place and use your name? Or when you accidentally forget to take your name tag off? This happened to me when I worked in Woking. I always had the same coffee at the same time at the same coffee place every day. They started calling me Gary at some point and it took me ages to realise it was because I was always wearing my ID around my neck.

Having had my coffee, it was into Waitrose and a post-shop chat with one of the check-out ladies. The topic today was the excess of Christmas food. It’s amazing how much of a conversation you can fit into £12 of supermarket transaction.

She dined at her son’s place this year and there was a LOT of food. Then he was coming to her on the day after Boxing day but he didn’t turn up. So she had a whole load of food left over to go along with the food she’d been given from his place. While I sympathised with the amount of turkey I’m still eating (I actually finished the last of it for lunch today) she said that wasn’t the problem.

“Oh no,” she said, “It’s the cheese. There’s always too much cheese.”

It seems she had gone mad buying cheese and had lots left over which she and her husband have been slowly nibbling through. I explained that I had done the same thing. I bought a whole load of cheese for Christmas and it didn’t get eaten (we sat and ate most of it yesterday).

“Trouble is,” she continued, “My husband’s doctor has said he has to cut down on cheese, not eat more of it! Which means I’ve got to eat it all!”

I thought about this on the way home. I should say, I thought about lots of things. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I spent the entire 15 minute walk focussed on cheese. And I thought about (see?) the awful waste that Christmas represents. Not just in quantities of cheese but in wrapping paper, cards, uneaten food, ruined presents, unwanted presents, etc, etc. Is that what makes us civilised? The fact that we can buy, not use and discard if we want? See? Sometimes I get quite serious during my walk home.

Latest news on my DITA assignment is that I should finish sometime tomorrow! Hip, hip hooray!

The day brightened up beautifully.  We started with grey clouds and what looked like becoming a grim old Christmas day but then, out of the blue, came the…err…blue.  The rest of the day was glorious though still cold.

I’m starting to get a bit annoyed with the amount of things that religion has appropriated.  All this talk about Jesus being born on Christmas day.  Ok, clearly, Christmas is the birth of Christ but it didn’t happen on 25 December.  Well, it may have but the thing is, no-one actually knows.

Before the Christians decided to steal Christmas for themselves, it was a celebration of the winter solstice.  It was to mark the end of the shortest days and a look forward to the days growing longer.

Of course, we all know this is 21 December but the Romans did the maths wrong.  They didn’t realise it, but gradually, over a few hundred years, 21 December drifted four days ahead in time and, voila, solstice becomes Christmas.   Not that the Romans did it first.  They appropriated the calendar, changing it slightly, from the Egyptians.

Anyway, another one has gone by and another Christmas dinner has been created, eaten and (almost) cleaned up after.  I was up at 6am and worked steadily towards lunch at 2pm.

I was very happy with the turkey this year.  The meat just slid off and was soft to taste.  I was also happy with my cranberry sauce.  I generally find it too tart but it was somehow slightly sweeter this year.  Karen particularly liked my parsnips and Nigel enthused over my shortbread.  Mirinda loved everything, exactly the way a wife should.

Karen and Nigel are at the airport at the moment, waiting for their flight which leaves in less than an hour.  Karen is clutching two turkey and cranberry rolls because she doesn’t believe that BA Business Class food is any good.  It’s funny to think that by the time I get to sleep, they’ll be in the sky, flying home.

me at the cooker preparing lunch

The weather is getting warmer and the snow is now ice and slush.  Late in the day, ghostly clouds of frozen fog can be seen rising from the sports fields at the top of the park.  Eerie.

Hopefully I’ve managed to finish the Christmas shopping today as it’s now 5pm on Christmas eve.  Not much hope of getting anything beyond maybe some forecourt flowers at the BP garage on the bypass.

Spent most of the day cooking and cleaning and getting prepared for tomorrow; the usual Christmas palaver that I love.  Oddly, there are no presents for Karen & Nigel but given they are flying back to Australia tomorrow night and they’ve managed to rid themselves of virtually all their belongings in one way or another, it seemed a bit pointless.  Karen said Christmas dinner would be present enough.  And the turkey and cranberry sauce roll she’s ordered for eating on the plane.

Anyway, that’s tomorrow.  This afternoon, something very odd happened.  I took the puppies for a walk in the park.  No, that’s not the odd thing!  We walked along the playing fields then turned to walk along the Queen’s Bottom.  This is the very bottom of a big field which is actually called White’s Bottom.  It is bordered at the top by the Queen’s Hedge.  So, naturally, I call it the Queen’s Bottom.

The very bottom is the result of glacial melt following an ice age.  It’s part of the terracing that is evident all around Farnham.  Each level from different epochs.  Mostly the terracing ends in the River Wey but in the park, it is generally dry and full of alluvial deposits (that’s mixed gravel, basically).  During the Mesolithic, it would have been a wide river where our ancestors fished and swam and generally had fun in the summer months.  I know this because there’s quite a few Mesolithic camps dotted around the area.

The only reason I’ve bothered explaining all that (and I apologise if you’ve nodded off or wandered over to a more interesting blog about The Used Stamps of Sweden) is because it is now flowing again with the meltwater from the recent heavy snowfall.  It’s almost a glimpse into the far distant past, and quite exciting.  However, that’s not really why I’m telling you but it did get me quite excited.

As we wandered down towards the Queen’s Bottom, Carmen suddenly went mad.  She sometimes gets very excited and runs around like a lunatic and I figured this is what she was doing.  She started running in circles and rolling in the remains of the snow (more odd behaviour she’s suddenly developed) then took off at full pelt towards the quick flowing stream at the bottom.  Without slowing she ran into then along it for quite a distance before turning back towards Day-z and me, where she threw herself down into the snow and started rubbing herself in it.  She then repeated this over and over and over again.

Generally when one of the puppies goes for a run, the other isn’t far behind (they hate being left out) but this time, Day-z didn’t move away from me at all.  She was watching Carmen with that wary suspicion she excels at.   It was truly bizarre.  Once we reached the Avenue of Trees which is at the top of the Queen’s Bottom field, Carmen had stopped her lunatic running and rolling and was back to normal.

Something else I should mention.  A bit earlier, Mirinda had told me Carmen had vomited upstairs.  It was bright yellow and didn’t look right.  It seems to me that Carmen had eaten something yellow and it had disagreed with her.  Judging by the fluorescent colour, I understand completely.

Now, what I’m wondering is, are the two things related at all?  Did she find something that sent her on some sort of drug-induced trip?  Was she hallucinating that the stream made her hot so she had to cool off in the snow which made her cold so she had to warm up in the stream and around and around?

She seems to be fine now, lying on her armchair, pretending to be asleep.  It will probably remain a mystery.

The weather today ranged from blue skies to grey clouds to sleet to…I think it’s raining now but not sure.  I guess there’ll be no snow for Christmas then.

Well, never let it be said I don’t know what I’m good at.  Forget the stupid stollen!  Today, among other things, I made batches of shortbread and mince pies (all my own work…with a little help from Delia) and they were pronounced as perfect.  A pity I forgot the Christmas cake but these will have to do.

I also bought the turkey today.  Normally I leave it till the last minute and buy it Chrissy eve but today at Waitrose, there were fights breaking out for the final birds so I ducked underneath the flailing arms and grabbed the closest to hand.  It’s enough to feed 8-10 people, apparently.  It’s presently filling the fridge.

I’ve had a rather busy day, all round, and am looking forward to bed.  I just finished watching Spooks (the last in the present series and my favourite show) and they did it again!  A big bomb, an agent in jeopardy, possibly dead, no way out…and no answers till the next series!  AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

So, a short entry for a change.

Another glorious and cold day.  The temperature is yet to rise above zero so the ground keeps getting slipperier.

Generally around this time of the year we go to Guildford cathedral for the carol service.  There’s nothing quite like the pleasure of belting out a few Christmas carols in a large sell-out crowd.  And it is ALWAYS a sell-out.  The warnings are clear:  turn up an hour before the start or risk sitting outside in the cold and dark.  Or sitting in your car listening to a CD.

Sadly, more often than not, we forget to look for the date and end up missing it.  And such was the case this year.  However, eagle-eyed Mirinda spotted the local carol service at St Andrew’s church.  It was tonight and we were free.

It was a slow, freezing slide to the church (well, for Mirinda, anyway, I had my spikey’s on).  We arrived at the gate and the vision of the tower, seeming to rise from the beams of the spotlights along with the bells tolling out as people arrived along the cobblestones, was quite ethereal.  I reminded Mirinda that this was very similar to the call to the mosque but she denied this and gave at least four salient points why it wasn’t.  I stood corrected.

St Andrew’s was recently renovated inside, with a large area at the back created.  Rooms for kids and a kitchen area.  On top a balcony area for more seating.  All painted clean, bright, white.  It looks modern yet sits nicely within the old church.  I’m sure there was probably a lot of complaints when the idea was first mooted but I’m glad it went ahead.

Tonight the church was packed.  We were sat to one side of the centre aisle so our view of the proceedings was almost exclusively a couple of columns.  Fortunately we were sitting within sight of one of the female church helpers so we knew when to sit, stand, pray, sing and shut up as we took our cues from her.

One child was not too keen on the whole thing.  Just as we started the first thing – a silence – he started carrying on and was dragged kicking and screaming into the kid’s area and locked away behind big, glass, sliding doors.

The older I get and the more atheist I become, the harder it is to listen to the rubbish they speak in the lessons.  Honestly, does anyone really believe the whole Adam & Eve thing?  And, if so, how can they justify Adam being such a dobber!  I mean what a pain.

Anyway, the service has nine lessons and a load of carols between them.  Local dignitaries read the lessons (there was one from the mayor, one for our parliament member, another from the owner of the local newspaper, etc) and the choir struggled through a load of songs.

To be honest, the quality of the choir was not very high but what they lacked in skill, they made up for in gusto.  Sadly this merely stood to highlight the lack of skills!  Also, whoever arranged the carols really needs to bring the key down a bit.  It was very difficult for everyone to sing!

As we finished, and shuffled off into the dark, we smiled.  It was very enjoyable attending a carol service in our local church.  To be fair, it’s nice to have a local church.  Or anything.  I actually like having a pub I’ve been to more than a couple of times.  Maybe I’m starting to settle.

We strolled home in the very, very, very cold and had a good rollicking debate about the stupid lessons we’d just sat through.  Mirinda even had a problem with some of the carol lyrics.

At home, we were welcomed most vigorously by Carmen and Day-z.  We spared a thought for poor Brad who passed away recently aged 19,  We cuddled the girls.  For warmth, more than anything else.  Perhaps this is truly religion – the love of each other and our dogs.

One final thing…in the second verse of O Come All Ye Faithful, my personal favourite, the third line reads “lo! he abhors not the Virgin’s womb“.  Now, given that the word ‘womb’ does not have to rhyme with anything, couldn’t it have been written with a little more beauty?  Jesus, guys!