A White Christmas

At my Mums request I wrote a definitive account of our Christmas this year. So I am going to include a lot of boring trivia, be highly opinionated and hope you will stay tuned for the ride! All opinions expressed are my own, except when they have been carefully edited out by my parents!

First let me deal with some misconceptions that those not in the UK may have got from the media. Yes, I think for the last ten days it snowed somewhere in the UK everyday. No that does not mean everywhere had continual snow. This is the UK not Cananda. What has happened is that the snow first hit the South East of England, think London and Home Counties, then moved onto East England, the East Midlands and South West England, then by the weekend it hit North East England and the west Midlands, reaching Northern England and North West England on Wednesday, then onto Scotland and is slowly now clearing from the West of Scotland. This is not a weather front moving across the country but a band of slowly moving cold air, which has meant temperatures hovering at around zero, and what would normally be rain falling as snow. It is still likely to be snowing in Scotland but in Manchester the weather has turned to rain and is now above freezing. Yes, driving was hazardous especially on minor roads but the gritters were out and doing a marvellous job on major roads and B roads. So as a rule if you could get out of the bit of road on which you lived, onto something more major you could get where you wanted to go, or at least as far as the start of the minor roads that lead to them. The advice at least between Sheffield and Manchester was never “do not travel” but “take precautions”.  Take precautions equals, take a hot drink with you, give extra time for your journey and do not try to travel by very minor roads. For instance don’t try and cross Winnats Pass in Derbyshire (which is a pass you use if you are looking for a pleasant ride on a summers day, but not for going anywhere in a hurry). On Wednesday when I came over, even the Snake Pass (notorious for closing at the slightest fall of snow) was open, but the question was whether I could get through Glossop at the foot of the pass rather than whether I could get over. It is largely drivers pretending that the weather is not worse than usual that cause the problem. When drivers are driving appropriately for the weather conditions there is really no problem. Alright it may take you an extra twenty minutes for every hour of travel to get somewhere, but you will get.

So how was Christmas. Well when the snow first hit the South East Dad started to panic. I think its part of his habitual pessimism; he expects the worse and therefore is regularly nicely surprised when it does not happen. So when it started snowing he actually saw a  week ahead with heavy snow, freezing fog and black ice everywhere (note to father, black ice and frozen snow don’t tend to happen together, as black ice requires either rain or the snow to melt!)  He always does it is part of his nature. We have learnt to live with it, but it is handicapping him as much as anything else and certainly his worrying over it ain’t doing his blood pressure any good.

Yes on Tuesday, going up to my sisters was not a good idea, as they had had fresh snow there. My sister lives on the northern moors of Greater Manchester. You get better scenery there but you also have a higher chance of snow, and minor roads tend to become impassable quickly. (for instance on Christmas day it was about two degrees colder than down in Stockport which was not) . However it should be noted that while my sister advised my parents not to come up on Tuesday and they sensibly didn’t, both she and her husband went out to work that day and returned safely! In other words travel was possible with care; it was just foolish to be doing extra travel on that day.

On Wednesday my parents took the food for cooking that morning up to my sister’s at her work place. This meant that Dad did not have to cope with the icy condition of the roads around her house. Dad and Mum had bought frozen sprouts so rather than let them defrost my sister dumped them outside the church in the snow (refrigeration is not strictly necessary in this weather in the UK). They were also waiting on tender hooks to see if Hannah’s dressing gown would arrive. I had ordered it on the last date that they guaranteed delivery before Christmas. However it had not arrived on the morning but the delivery company had put it in the meter cabinet by the time they got back.

Dad’s caution meant he was all for me coming over by the M62 rather than going as I planned to visit friends which meant going through Derbyshire. All right my SATNAV decided Winnats was a sensible way to go not the route I planned A623 followed A625, which was nice and clear. In fact the one bit when I thought I’d follow the Winnats route I ended up following a snow plough and as part of that was B roads I knew Derbyshire was doing well and risked a B road that cut a considerable bit of the journey off for me, going to a friends and the SATNAV redeemed itself by getting me to their home, through the centre of Macclesfield without sending me twice around the ring road or up a oneway street the wrong way. I find for getting to residential homes in unfamiliar towns having a satnav is very useful. It saves me having to pull in and get out a map. Travelling through Derbyshire in the snowy weather was glorious. I quite regularly wished I had more time to get across and could stop the car and take photographs. Surprisingly it was after 4pm before the last light had left the sky. Dusk was very slow and gradual.

The meal with Fleur and Walter was good and it was good to stop over and chat. They both seemed to be doing well, with the delivery man still turning up with parcels for Christmas, even though they were off to Sheffield the next day. It does seem a bit ludicrous visiting someone to deliver a parcel who is the next day going to go over from whence you came but as I had hired a car (too large, next year I must remember to get a size smaller) and they were travelling by train, leaving it at Elizabeth’s (their daughter) was not going to be sensible. I set off from theirs shortly after nine pm, unfortunately I was still struggling with the size of the car and had difficulties pulling it out and it was starting to sleet and snow, but once on the main roads it was straightforward to get to my parents. At one point a driver thought they would be cheeky and overtake at a traffic light. Actually I was not bothered if they did, but having the bigger powered car meant that they did not have the chance they expected and I noticed that they settled in behind me.

Next day Mum and Dad got up to get into town early. The weather took second place to Dad’s worry about dealing with crowds doing last minute shopping in Stockport, hence the early start. As the day slowly warmed the roads were actually clearer later on. Also there was a milk delivery. My Mum and Dad still have a milk man who delivers but he does not do it daily so with the bank holidays he delivered rather a large quantity of milk, more than the usual fridge can cope with in this foodie season. The result is as usual the overspill ended up in the laundry (cold weather outside keeps that even cooler than usual so another plus for the weather). In previous years quantities of cheese and wine have also been stored down there. Modern British houses are all built to be kept at a single temperature; it’s the exception that has a room that is cool like my parents laundry. If I was designing houses I would have both a pantry (cool room normally on the north side of the house for storing food) and a drying room, which is a warm dry room, with airing cabinet and drying racks in it, used for getting clothes dry. The idea of just one standard temperature throughout the whole house seems daft to me.  

I just spent the day wrapping the presents; this seems to be an annual ritual. I turn up at my parents with presents, wrapping paper etc and proceed to wrap up the remainder of the presents.

On the evening Jean rang and mum had a natter with them. I think if Mum could have been in two places at the same time then she would definitely have been in South Africa this Christmas.

Snow again came in towards evening and Dad woke very worried about getting out. We tried to get out in the morning to get to Parrswood. The wheel spun on the car so we decided that discretion was the better idea and stayed in. However the day was a balmy 2-4°C and that is enough for snow to melt. My parents neighbour Rick was seen scattering salt on the front of their house and I realised that doing so would allow me to clear the slope from the house to the street which was really quite nastily slippery and that would make Dad a lot more confident about getting out. Anyway tacking things slowly with my hire car, I got it out, unfortunately I was still had not got its size right (actually if I am honest the car does not have a clear view to the rear and I feel I have little idea how I am doing when I am reversing. Mum and me loaded up the car. I should have left Dad in charge of checking we had everything out of the house as, as per usual we left the stool at home. Soon we must buy Cathy a couple of folding dining chairs, as Hannah will soon be too big to sit on the high stool from their kitchen comfortably at the dinning room table.  Once we were on the Didsbury Road at the bottom of the hill there were no problems until we got onto Manor Road itself. Then our timing was just out and two cars were leaving just as we got in. As there was a single clear track it took some manoeuvring but we managed. Somebody had cleared two car spaces on their drive and built a snowman with the snow so freed. Why do I think that somehow Hannah and Sam might have had a hand in doing so. Cathy had put her car into the garage so I parked our car in the space she had vacated.

Irene, Adrian’s mother had already arrived and they were back from the pub. Adrian was saying Mum does not like going to the Pub, that may be the impression given by my parents but the problem is not quite that. The fact is that the pub is crowded and Dad does not like crowds while Mum finds crowds make hearing difficult with a hearing aid as it does not tune out the background noise. So a quiet pub is fine, a busy noise one isn’t. Anyway we went up later this year so as to avoid going to the pub and that seemed to work.

Dad was planning to play a trick on Sam and leave his Christmas present in the car, but with the snow, Dad was not carrying the presents and Sam came out to help (initially in his stocking feet, until he got sent back in by his aunt to put something more substantial on) and so I let him carry in the large box that had his Christmas present in. Hannah’s response to Sam’s Christmas present was where was hers. So I pulled out the parcel for her from my parents. This contained a yellow dressing gown which she put on over her smart Christmas clothes.  I had had various freebies during the year and I put a pen and pad of paper to one side for Sam and a few bits of makeup for Hannah (from Boots when I buy makeup I actually want). Hannah was delighted with the bag with makeup in it and tried it out. So you have to imagine this small six year old in a smart grey shorts, sparkly top with tights on, over which she had a yellow dressing gown and bright red smudge around her lips and mascara smudged all under her eyes. She was a bit like a sprite in the process of dressing up as a pantomime dame.

Cathy and Adrian had prepared the Christmas lunch as per usual. This year Cathy had decided not to hassle and try and put on extras but just to do what she knew worked. So we had French Onion Soup as a starter, followed by turkey with all the trimmings and just Christmas pudding with custard. Sam, much to Cathy’s disgust loves sprouts! It appears he is the exception in the family. Hannah only like sprouts if Mavis cooks them! Mavis is the school cook and appears to be a favourite with both Sam and Hannah. They were listing the best cooks in the world, Cathy got first place and Mavis second on Christmas day, but my sister felt that was them flattering her and they really preferred Mavis, at which point Adrian pointed out that that meant that the best he could be was the world’s third best cook.

Sam is one, of those kids, who wants to be always helping. The problem was that between main course and pudding his job was to talk with my mum and day, Irene and me (although Hannah was rather monopolising me). He did not understand this as helping and wanted to be getting up and helping his mum. The result was that it had to be spelt out to him but in the end he got his new mobile phone out and started collecting people’s phone numbers for on it. He got my parents and then got mine, at which point we discovered that Adrian had my old mobile number. He must have got it when Sam was about three, and he and Cathy went away for a weekend, leaving Sam with Mum and Dad. However Dad was preaching at Zion Wakefield for an anniversary service, so I was called in to help. In order to keep in contact we used Adrian’s and my mobile. This meant that we could ring Adrian, hand Sam the phone and he could talk to Mum and Dad. So Adrian got an up to date phone number for me as well (given that I have had the present one for over five years).

Sam and Hannah are neither of them the sort of kids that will sit still. Or at least Hannah isn’t and Sam only seems to when he is watching TV, then if you get in the way you are in trouble. Adrian had specified no TV before 5 pm so they both wanted to be up from the table and away. Hannah immediately wanted to do something so pulled out the puzzle that I had bought her. It said for seven year old plus but as it was right up Hannah’s street I bought it for her anyway. The puzzle was 250 piece jigsaw to be done without a picture to work from. Also there was a story and questions to answer, but you could only answer the questions once you had done the puzzle. Hannah was darting all over the place while Cathy read the story, but when Cathy started asking question Hannah had the answers with out a single doubt, so she was obviously listening. My God daughter Cait is exactly the same. I wonder how they will get on as they get older. As we all moved through to their lounge I started to work on the puzzle not expecting to get very far, but just so Hannah felt someone was giving her attention. Sam so he was not left out was texting me, meanwhile Cathy and Adrian were clearing up and brought us tea and coffee.

Of course Hannah got bored with doing the jigsaw, little girls do and wanted to know when we would finish. Fortunately Cathy came and joined me and some how we managed to put the puzzle together. To make it worse it was four pictures, two sets of two with similar colour schemes so we kept finding we had put pieces together in the wrong quarter.  It was not helped that some of the pieces fitted almost. Hannah is doing well for a six year old, she is quite capable of doing what her great grandfather used to do and coming along and helping to put in the last twenty or so pieces, although sometimes she’d have the pieces the wrong way up even though she was trying the right space. Unfortunately unlike her grandfather she expects the others to do the early bit really quickly. At one time she was fussing with the pyjamas I bought so Cathy chucked them into the other room. Hannah grumped. Cathy told her she had a mean mummy. If Cathy carries on like this when Hannah is a narked teenager and calls Cathy mean, Cathy will have the luxury of informing Hannah that she has been telling her that for years, and its nice that she has at last realised and no she is not going to change her policy now.

At 5:00 pm Adrian allowed Sam to put on the TV for the Gruffalo. It starts  “One day a mouse went for a walk in the dark wood…” and this mouse is a very much a quick talking mouse who pretends he is going to meet a Gruffalo, but there is “No such thing as a Gruffalo!” You will either need to get the children’s story book or find a copy of the programme as I am not telling you what happens. Adrian having no doubt worked late on Christmas eve, then been busy helping with dinner, plus woken by Hannah at 6:00 a.m. or earlier fell asleep on the settee. Sam objected at this point to the fact his father was snoring. As my sister pointed out, she could ask people to shut up but there was not much she could do about his father snoring.

By the time that that had finished we had almost completed the puzzle. Then we had to ask Hannah the questions which, of course, she got right. I wonder how long it will be before she persuades her mum to do it again with her.

Anyway as Dr Who was coming on, and while Sam is an avid fan, I can not take it. Loathe it would be wrong, rather I have only watched it once right through, when sickening for some childhood illness and it gave me nightmares. I am not good at watching TV anyway and the memory of that experience is vivid enough to make me want to exit the room pretty soon after Dr Who comes on. This is even quicker than for most comedy programmes. Surprisingly when I have been to the cinema I seem to have coped better. Anyway mum and Dad were ready to come home and Irene. The journey back was uneventful although Dad sometimes was over instructing and unfortunately for him this lets me know when he gets things wrong. He wanted me back behind the white line when I was turning right at a green light, as mum and Irene confirmed to me, not that it really mattered as traffic was light.

Having dropped Irene at her house we had an uneventful trip back.

Since then we have spent time quietly. I slept most of the next day and I don’t recall my parents doing anything exciting. I think they tried to get around to the paper shop but it was too icy underfoot. Otherwise a very quiet day for us all although Sam texted me from his new mobile phone

Sunday was Sam’s eleventh birthday. Mum and Dad phoned him on the morning to wish him a happy birthday. I got a text from him, thanking me for his birthday present and also saying that he had enjoyed his walk the previous day. Mum and Dad went to church; I however was lazy and slept-in in the morning. Mum felt that Tony Cottam’s son, who is a Methodist Local preacher led worship well on the Sunday. Dad said that he did the text justice which is pretty high praise from Dad.

We had got for my father bird feeders for Christmas after his broke during the year. So later in the day I out to check the pole for my father’s bird feeder, I had been told it was fine, but I found that the top bit that was supposed to connect the pole to the bird feeder was either damaged in the fall or had gone missing. Anyway there was no way I could put the new feeder onto the top of the pole so we have had to order a new pole.

On the afternoon I tried to put into action Dad’s new birdfeeder but the crucial top of the pole bit has either been broken or lost and a new one did not come with the feeder so I have ordered for him a new pole hoping that it will come with that. Dad also wanted the ability to feed insect eaters so I added to his order a feeder and some dried meal worms so that he could feed them. Mum drew the line at live meal worms although she might accept peck ‘n’ mix as an alternative.

Today we went to Sainsbury’s to do some shopping and to get mum from a cash point near there, then Dad took me to fill my car up at a local garage. Tomorrow I head up to Scotland to visit Morag and Tony.

Advent service, Christmas preparations, and Carol service

what news is there from this week. Well I did not make my supervision due to supervisor being double booked. He is on temporary "promotion" due to basically the Dean of Arts getting a new job. I think for the first time he realised that I know how to handle people with busy diaries (thanks Fleur, Sarah, the Dicksons etc for the training) as when he did not respond with dates to my first email I sent him a second more persistent one. I am also learning to deal with busy people with Dyslexia. If you want them to act of something make sure it is the FIRST point in the email, if they think they can get away without reading on they will, and that rather blows things if from your perspective the main point is the second.

The Advent Wreath happened largely thanks to Lynn and Sandra (her twin sister). I think Asha the Chaplaincy assistance thought I was being odd when I introduced them by colour of clothing especially as both of them were looking down at the time and at present Sandra has more weight on than Lynn. However they are identical twins and though I can tell now just by looking someone who does not know them won't. Lynn has retired so came in specially bringing her sister and four bin bags of greenery. I am still trying to digest this years wreath. My analysis to date is it is more subdued but in better keeping with the front. The purple and I think blue will to create a depth and I wonder another year  I might have just some greenery sprayed with those.

With the supervision being cancelled I have actually had three quieter days this week (deliberately). I spent the time doing some transcription, writing up last Sundays service, making chocolates and decorating boxes as well as wrapping one or two presents and sending out my Christmas Cards. In between I have been playing with my camera and the result to date has been three panoramas of the view from my window in the snow. The first one after a flurry on Friday, the second later than evening and the last one this afternoon after a far heavier fall today. Fortunately the met office seems to think that the snow will decrease over the next few days.

Today I went to Herringthorpe for the nativity play, this year the play was set around the story of Simeon and Anna. The kids had written it. So it was set in the X-mas Factor, with contestants of Shepherd, Angels, Animals, Kings and Mary and Joseph. None of the acts caught the judges eye but there were two people cleaning around the place while it was going on. They of course were Simeon and Anna and although they appeared insignificant they were chosen as the most important. As the leader said afterwards they get more bible verses in Luke than do the Shepherds or the birth of Jesus and yet have none of the cute appeal the others had. I did rather get worried that he thought there were no animals in the temple, of course there were, even the passage we were reading has Mary and Joseph bringing two doves. Maybe animals don't count if they are going to be sacrificed. The other thing is that I think Anna and Simeon weren't nobodies you over looked. They represent the piety of ordinary folk who were part of Judaism, their piety made them exceptional. The piety did not bring them wealth but it gave them a way of living. So they were respected but for a totally different reasons. Oh and God was all for using the older person. In fact looking at a lot of biblical characters I am still too young. I think God sees eighty as about the median age for getting people to do things.

Last week I met up with a member there called Jenny. She used to attend Littleborough URC and then went up to St Andrews. So had enough in common to talk about things with ease. I could for instance say that perhaps Eldership should move more to an Academic Families pattern of pastoral care, and she immediately got the analogy. I wonder if that comment would actually work. There are several things about academic families that are interesting. Children choose parents and choose at least two (mother and father), families tend to be a mix of people parents have met in differing ways e.g. through societies, through hall of residence or through a social that the child and parent both attend. The result is that families are more mixed than most elders groups are. Its not a single interest group but a group where there are shared interests with some of the others. Hmm I think I feel a Musing coming on but will need some more thought before its written.

Tonight's service was a pretty normal carols by candlelight service. The things that stood were that they had both a choir and a young persons singing group. Both groups did harmony and the teenage girls have some strong voices amongst them. So I am beginning to see why they are thinking of putting on a musical. Roads were fine despite the snow but then the roads I am travelling along nearly all 40 mile an hour or higher with their speed limits so priority gritter roads. The problem was that most of the elderly stayed in so it was about a half a dozen mince pies each at the end.

Leech ware, Advent rings and Christmas shopping

News is going to be in highlight form. I have made a productivity break through. I found out about Leech block for Firefox and it has meant that I can keep more control over how much I browse sites that have the capacity to enthral me. I also found that totally banning myself is not a good move, but that if I give myself a short time on those sites I actually tend to control my use of the sites a lot better. However when I ban some sites others come along that are time wasters such as Snowdays and the Haggis Hunt. The Haggis Hunt is only onto 25th January but I think the Snowdays may need to go onto the banned list. The fun sites on the Haggis Hunt are Eilean Donan and Paris. The Paris one actually is of the Eiffel Tower which looks absolutely lovely when lit up at night.

Otherwise let me think, at work I have been busy, sometimes with PhD students and sometimes with doing some programming to provide a report on a weekly basis. Really the first test of it will be next Monday as up until now I have not run it without being very much in control. I am pretty sure that it will work ok and it is just in time for the busy period of term, i.e. this and next week. One of the students came to see mr just at the onset of flu, which I am glad to report I did not go down with. However I do wish people with cold and flu would think of others before they decided to visit them.

PhD wise something interesting seems to have happened to my with respect to Chesterfield. Now that I am finally finished at Chesterfield, I am far more prepared to sit down and transcribe and also to spend time with the interviews. I wonder if some of the tension that I felt before was the tension between getting new data and trying to handle old data. The effect of stopping it has meant that I am far more relaxed at doing things like transcribing. I am also prepared to go back to diary records and start to build analyses out of these. It is far more a question of sampling the data and then trying to see what I build out of that. The advantage is that by doing this sampling I am actually starting to build a much fuller analysis. Things are happening slowly.

Also I have the Advent ring for the Chaplaincy to do again this year. I have decided I am bored with red and gold. So this year we are doing white, purple and silver. I just hope everything comes together and that includes the person in charge of lights having something other than the traditional orange or red  filter. The big miracle will be if the silver ropes of beads turn up! At present they should arrive at my home tomorrow because I once again managed to fill in the wrong address on the delivery notice. If someone lets the delivery man in I might get them in time. If not I will have to do it without them. I checked at the local Sainsbury (technically one of their small shop, the equivalent to Tesco Express, but so big it would have been a full sized supermarket a decade ago) and they had none in. As they seemed to be the only shop selling them I tried getting them online. Then I messed up and now its too late. So if they don't come we will do without. I already have quite a lot of spray paint and ribbons and some white beads bought last year from John Lewis who had none in this year. I have picked six bags of greenery and had two definite donations and one maybe. Lets hope that I get more from somewhere.

However yesterday I broke the back of Christmas shopping. By that I mean I have three things left to get, but all of those are from places I would go to anyway. Given it was the next to last Saturday before Christmas, it was understandable that most coffee shops were rather full. I just looked at the queue in the Marks and Spencer one and decided against it. However having done a mamoth shop, I was feeling whacked and had to walk back home as the last shop on the list was on the way home. I fortunately decided to walk up by the Cathedral, and at the corner with Leopold Street there is a Lavazza Coffee shop which had a few customers in, only one couple waiting to order and lots of spare tables. When I left it was getting close to full and anyway placed there I suspect it is mainly a workers coffee shop. However the ability to get a coffee without even waiting and sit down and rest for a while was brilliant. I think I might check if these are regularly open on a Saturday and if so, make them the coffee shop I go to if I am in town. I have rather gone off the one that is next door to where SPCK used to be, since it got refitted. It went very up market, and what I liked was that it felt the sort of place where nobody minded if you sat in a corner, read a book and drank a coffee. Now it feels like a place where you go to see and be seen.

Today I went to Herringthorp, I think I am beginning to settle. I got a Christmas card unexpectedly off one of the elders well a couple of elders. I had not thought that I knew anyone well enough for them to think I should get a Christmas card, but obviously because I ended up working with the husband of the pair at the Christmas fair they thought it would be the right thing to do. I suppose I should have gone back for the Christingle service but honestly I was tired and I had the greenery for the Advent ring to pick, and one place I wanted to do during the light because I am not sure that drug users don't use it as a place to congregate out of watchful eyes when it is dark. During daylight it is next to a busy road and they would be observable but at night the traffic is less and the light does not really reach that far.

This week is busy with the Carol service on Tuesday and a supervision on Thursday. I intend to take Friday off so as to allow me time recover. Actually Saturday is recovery time as well, as I am planning on making home made chocolates for presents and to take into work.