Mulled wine fort

Amid yet another day of house sortage, we had the gardeners come today. It’s possibly the last time we’ll ever see Gardener Dave. Of course, we didn’t tell him that. We wished him a Merry Christmas, gave him his festive bottle of wine and said goodbye like we always do. He said he’d see us in the new year but neither of us acknowledged that.

Of course, we might see him when we momentarily return to the UK but I don’t think that’s likely. Still, Mirinda likes to cling onto these bits of driftwood, and, why not?

Anyway, although they didn’t have a lot to do, the ground being frozen and all, the garden still looked a lot better after they’d been.

Of course, I wasn’t at home when they arrived. I was at Starbucks, where poor Jade was busy making up Christmas boxes. The first ones, she said, were fun. By the tenth, it was all getting a bit tedious. So much so that she shoved one onto the floor, shattering the peace of the morning with the demise of a big mug. Fortunately empty.

Waitrose was a bit busier than normal, something that regularly happens at this time of year. It wasn’t too bad but I know it’s just going to get worse leading up to the 25th. Still, as Miss Mackay always said “What canna be cured maun be endured.” So, endure it I did.

One thing I find difficult to endure is the stack of stuff piled around my favourite self check out machine. Today, someone had built a mulled wine fort. When I suggested as much to the floor walker, she said there were much worse forts to be behind. I couldn’t really argue with that.

Meanwhile, in other wall of liquid news, the giant aquarium in the Radisson Blu hotel, where I stayed in Berlin in 2019, exploded today, freezing hundreds of tropical fish as the water flowed out onto the roads.