Susej Drol

Greggs the Bakers, a large chain of purveyors of various sweet and savoury pastry treats, produced an advent calendar for Christmas this year that has caused a bit of a furore…as well as quite a few guffaws. I have to admit that I’m in the latter camp.

In each of the days is a traditional Chrissy type photo with one bit replaced with a Gregg’s product. The one that has caused righteous indignation is the one where the baby Jesus has been replaced in the manger with a sausage roll. The image also features the three kings kneeling in homage of the tasty treat.

Obviously quite a few religious people have been upset by it…particularly Catholics. Most of all, everyone thinks it’s just funny. However, what has caused most humour is the fact that if you read ‘Lord Jesus’ backwards it sounds remarkably like ‘sausage roll.’

But that was actually last week and I just forgot to include it in a post.

Today, after the gym, I started to Skype mum but her phone has decided to play bad and didn’t show her my text then her laptop died. After a few texts that successfully arrived, we decided to leave it till tomorrow.

I needed to go shopping (Mirinda had ordered an almond pastry quiche for dinner) but Mirinda was on the phone discussing a Chinese delegation and not to be disturbed so I started sweeping up the leaves on the terrace, of which there were many.

One of the things I really, really hate is going into Farnham too close to lunch time. From midday until about 2:30, Farnham is crowded and extremely unpleasant. There are usually no seats left in Starbucks and the aisles of Waitrose are littered with the stupidest shoppers on earth. So, it’s understandable that as the clock rapidly approached 11am, I could wait no longer for my wife to get off the phone so I left. (Later she told me she spent quite a while trying to find me after she’d finished the phone call.)

I managed to get a seat at Starbucks and also enjoyed a rare latte art production by Eily. At first it looked like a jumpsuit but after I’d taken a sip, it looked more like a scary monster type dude giving me the finger.

After coffee then shopping (with some really stupid people) I returned home to find that Mirinda had left for a conference in Winchester. I fed the dogs then took them to the park for a run around.

It was a bit windy out but that didn’t stop a lot of dogs running around, playing and pointlessly chasing leaves. Emma had a glorious time chasing her tennis ball while Freya made lots of new friends.

Back at home (again) I finished sweeping the leaves on the terrace and then hit the greasy tiles with the high pressure washer, making it safe to walk on. Of course it’ll all be back tomorrow but what can you do?

I then hit the new lavender bed in order to complete the tulip planting that I started last week. I emptied the various assorted bulbs into a big bag and picked them out randomly in order to mix them up beautifully. Of course, if Douglas Adams was right then they’ll probably all come out in order.

To last week’s 67 bulbs, this week I planted 68…that’s a lovely lot of tulips.

By the time I’d finished the sun had gone and I had to start on my quiche. It’s always a bit fiddly having to mix the almond flour pastry, sitting it in the fridge for a bit then putting it in the…whatever a ceramic quiche pan is called. It can’t be rolled so it has to be put in bit by bit while squishing it out. Then, of course, it’s back in the fridge.

Eventually we both ate it with a salad. It was delicious.