If you have recorded or want to watch Strictly Come Dancing on catch up….
Because…..
Well well well well….Strictly Come Dancing champion 2020……issssss
BILL BAILEY!!!!! 🕺🕺🕺🏆👏👏👏👏
Huge congratulations to Oti for raising a champion dancer.
I genuinely thought Hrvy would win due to his age and popularity and of course I would have loved Jamie to win, even though I didn’t think he would, and Maisie…..what a little ray of sunshine…
They were ALL amazing and the final was quite simply SPECTACULAR or as Craig would say FAB.U.LOUS 😁😁😁
but I’m THRILLED that Bill won. He was amazing and definitely made the most improvement and ended in a spectacular fashion.
Strictly Come Dancing has been so uplifting during the last few months and it’s still my absolute favourite show. It brings so much joy.
This government is absolutely totally and utterly fcking useless….I mean the bloody PM.
Tier 4!!!! Less than a week before Christmas when day after day that useless ‘I can’t even think of a suitable curse’ supposed prime minister has been saying that people CAN go ahead and plan for Christmas. Have a merry little Christmas!!! 😠😠😠
They KNEW about the mutant variant over a week ago and they didn’t take action immediately!! September is when they identified it, and just recently they said its spreading fast. Why not shut down immediately.
As usual they bloody wait and dither and obsficate and kick their heels, just like he did in January, February March.
I’m fed up with his dithering ffs.
We know and understand the need for lockdown, for taking action and making hard decisions, but WHY does he always dither and obsficate?
After correcting the start date for the Great Ocean Road virtual challenge in Australia, it seems I’m actually ahead of myself
Why thank you, I’m giving it some welly…😁😁
But with the 2020 Conqueror Challenge I’m still behind
Okay, okay…I’m trying…🤪🤪
121.1km doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you’re not ‘actually’ walking ‘virtually’ it’s a longggg way to zero!!Now if only this sodding weather would improve, I might actually finish them on schedule, and considering that I still want to virtually climb Mt. Fuji before 31.12.2020 …..
Still to get started, never mind completed
Meanwhile, the last day of 2020 creeps ever nearer….
As a child you grow up with traditions and learn about others, whether they be religious or seasonal, familial or foreign and they all seem to be set in stone with certain rules that govern how they play out. I learned something quite profound one day…..traditions are not set in stone, they can be amended or tweaked and new ones can be created…!!! 😁😁
My mother had quite a few traditions, one of which was decorating the Christmas tree. A few days before Christmas a tree would mysteriously appear in the lounge (sitting room for the Brits 🤪🤪), and if a real tree, it stood in a bucket of sand. 🎄
In the build up to Christmas day we learned that Father Christmas aka Santa would be visiting on the night before Christmas and leave us lots of presents….and he would decorate the tree, so when we woke up on Christmas day, magically the tree would be adorned in all its glory.
As we got older and learned that ‘Santa’ was actually Mommy, we got to help with the decorating. I remember the excitement as Christmas eve got closer and the anticipation built….and then her Christmas boxes would come out from wherever she was hiding them and glory be….we got to open them. Oh the beauty of all those shiny balls, the tinsel glittering in the light, the quirky little characters exclaimed over with delight and then the decorating began as we tried to balance them out around the tree with much laughter – the baubles going higher the taller we grew. And finally with a flourish we pulled tufts of cottonwool off a fat new roll, threw them all over the tree with wild abandon and voila, the tree was covered in ‘snow’. 😃😃 Too much fun.
Being the eldest of 4 daughters I got to help my Mother decorate the tree in secret 3 times to surprise and delight my sisters on Christmas day…and of course the day brought a pile of presents too. 🎄🎁🎁🎁🎁 Needless to say, my Mother did things in a big way, and half the house would be decorated too ☺☺
When my daughter was growing up I carried on the traditions of my childhood and decorated the tree and lounge the night before Christmas to delight her in the morning. As she grew up and learned more about Santa’s secrets, she also got to decorate the tree. As it was just the 2 of us, we used to decorate together.
Now she’s grown up with a family of her own, she’s started a new tradition….the grandparents are invited over earlier in December for an evening of laughter, dinner and decorating the tree. Last year we all gathered together and my contribution was a 1st Christmas decoration for Jamie; an engraved ceramic star
This year I found a delightful little wooden decoration in Shepton Mallet; a picture of a snowman – he loves snowmen. ⛄⛄
Unfortunately this year, due to tier 3 restrictions the paternal grandparents didn’t join us, but we had a fun time decorating the tree.
Granny and Jamie hanging his decoration
This was Jamie’s first time ever decorating a Christmas tree. He got the idea straight away. Mummy gave him the first bauble, showed him how to open the string, and he went straight over and hung it up with very little instruction on how to do it. We’re so proud of him. ☺☺
He just got it….so smart 🥰💙
Of course not yet 2 years old, he got impatient with taking the decorations out one at a time and turned the box upside down and all over the floor 🤣🤣🤣 – and THEN proceeded to jumble them up.
But he was dissuaded and one by one the decorations went up with the assistance of Mummy and Daddy.
A steadying hand from Mummy
And finally when every last bauble and ball was up, he helped Daddy put the star on top 🎄…..👏👏👏👏 hoorah!! Its Christmas 🎉🎉🎉🎁🎁🎁
Daddy’s little Christmas star ☺☺💙He took it all very seriously ☺☺🎄🎉
Once the tree was done we settled down to have a superb Christmas meal….fully vegetarian.
Table decorations
A newly established family tradition.
I bought my boobee an early Christmas present; a Peppa Pig set of plate, bowl and cup. He’s currently obsessed with Peppa Pig, so an easy buy 🐷🐷
Another tradition my Mother had was making a Christmas pudding….every year she would buy the fruit mince the bread crumbs, the eggs, suet, the sixpences and 50p (all carefully boiled to sterilise them) and then the mixing began. We would fight to mix and once it was all done, fight again as to who would get to lick the spoons and the bowl. When the grandchildren came along they were encouraged to participate and I have the loveliest photo somewhere of my Mother, my daughter and 2 nieces gathered round the table mixing the pudding. Possibly the last pudding my Mother ever did since she passed away a couple of months after my daughter’s 4th birthday. Moving forward, my daughter doesn’t like Christmas cake, Christmas pudding or mince pies….weird child, but more for me 😁😁🤶🏻🥧🥧🥧
Oh and without a doubt, you can be sure that on Christmas day….we all vied for the 50p!!! A veritable fortune in those days 💰💰💰
P.S. did you notice the spelling of merry in the header photo…🤪🤪 only noticed after the package was opened…. a new tradition? 😉
4 years ago, after the orange swamp thing was voted in (I mean seriously wtaf???) and entered The White House, I decided that unless it was the title of something like The Great Wall of China for example, I was not going to use the word ‘great’ to describe anything.
That awful aberration of a human used it for everything, and he revolted me, so I determined to avoid it.
I’ve been about 95% successful… occasionally the dreaded word has slipped out…much to my son-in-law’s amusement and he doesn’t let me hear the end of it 🤔🤔🤣🤣
Besides that, just about every TV presenter or chat show host, or quiz show host and the general public use the word ‘great’ to describe just about everything. Just watch the Breakfast Show in the morning on BBC1….the word ‘great’ is over used by all the hosts.
We have literally hundreds of descriptive words in the English language, that with a bit of imagination and ingenuity, the word ‘great’ could be avoided.
I saw this gif the other day…thought I’d add it to the post 😁😁
I recently read a very very interesting article by/about virologist; Nathan Wolfe. He published a book in 2011 – The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age.
Whilst I know a few of my friends are Covid-19 deniers, it’s a very real thing, and not going to be the last viral pandemic we face. In the past few decades (and earlier- think HIV) we’ve had multiple outbreaks of deadly viruses: Ebola, SARS, avian flu: H7 & H9, Zika, Mers….and these are but a few that some of us have heard of (e.g. registered on our radar), and yes, the oft declared ‘winter flu’.
Covid-19 is not going to be the last major pandemic. Of course a lot of people will deny this and say its doom-mongering, doesn’t exist etc etc, but the reality is that we are cutting down the jungles (Think palm oil, cattle, soya etc.) at an unprecedented rate in the last 30 years+ and these viruses are going to affect us. Deny it if you will, and mostly people who haven’t yet been affected are the most likely to, but these viruses are very real. And of course we have all the gurus with their videos etc etc. But, Covid-19 had the potential to kill many more than have died, and as annoying as it is, lockdown is the reason it didn’t. Yes, its been catastrophic for the economy (estimated cost to the worldwide economy according to Dr Wolfe is $8trillion) but what’s the balance? Would you have been okay with the virus running rampant and killing more people? Your family? Friends?
The UK government dilly-dallied and considered going that route, but fortunately (or not) they finally got their act together and 23.03.20 we got lockdown. If only a couple of hundred people died in your country, be grateful. As you likely know, the UK hasn’t been that fortunate.
As more people are affected by climate change (yeah, yeah to the deniers…whatever) and starvation in Africa, and India, Indonesia, we’re going to see more economic migrants seeking food and water….and on the flip side of the coin, we have the rapacious west gobbling up resources, living more consumeristic lifestyles, demanding the latest and best of everything; creating more billionaires who get wealthy on our demands and create more destruction, cut down more jungle (Bolsenaro) and as our populations grow and grow creating more demand for cheap cheap cheap everything; food, clothes, houses, cars, fuel, TVs, phones, holidays, flights…. But what do the experts know? (And this doesn’t even take into account the devastation we are causing with our throw-away plastic). We are the architects of our own destruction.
And as the world is now experiencing a 2nd wave of infections, and a mutant strain of Covid-19 has started spreading in the UK, I wonder where we’ll be a year from now, and how effective are the vaccines going to be?
I’m working in Croydon for the next 9 days, so not holding out for too much of interest on my daily excursions. A very built up area, most of the houses are rather large or sprawling bungalows and lots of apartment buildings.
However, I did spot this little gem….Heron Croft circa 1493. How awesome is that!! I warrant the area was a tad different back then.
Heron CroftCirca 1493I can almost picture a stork nesting on that chimney
After getting rained on twice, I said ‘@#$% it’ and returned to the house. Not a good start and only managed 4kms….oh well…onwards
Got in a very respectable 15.9kms this morning. Starting off with a fantastic sunrise….red sky in the morning and all that
I headed up the coast to Stone Bay via Broadstairs where I stopped off at my favourite tearoom The Old Bakehouse for almond croissants (best ever) with a cup of coffee, which I enjoyed on the promenade, and fed the sparrows some toasted almond crumbs.
Almond croissant from The Old Bake House, Broadstairs Ever so cute…
Enroute I strolled past the Dickens Museum – although he didn’t actually live here, it was the home of one of his characters in David Copperfield; Betsy Trotwood.
The Dickens Museum, Broadstairs
By the time I reached the end of Stone Bay the wind had come up and that promised storm blew in…with a vengeance.
Blowing up a storm I wondered why….
Before heading back to Ramsgate, I bought some bird seed and scattered it amongst the bushes for the wee sparrows.
The wind was so strong along the foreshore that my walking poles were blown backwards and I had to plow into the wind.
Despite the wind and cold and rain, I had a fantastic walk. The harbour looked very different when I got back from when I left just after 7am
7:20am11:14am
And tomorrow I’m back to work. I don’t feel as if I’ve had a proper break.
But I did have a most wonderful afternoon with my lovely family…Christmas tree decorating. I’ll write about that tomorrow..
There is nothing more precious to me than hearing my grandson from behind the door saying “G’anny” when I ring the doorbell and then seeing that beautiful little face lit up with a smile. And a cuddle follows close behind ☺☺💙
Not Just a Granny 
You must be logged in to post a comment.