Feels a little odd being up this early at this time of year. Mind you it is the Feast of the Holy Innocents today so I daresay there is some in built instinct that says get up at five thirty, put on a coarse woollen shirt and walk barefoot to the top of a mountain to pray at a shrine. Something like that anyway. I could light the fire but I think I’d need to nip to the bottom of the garden to the wood store for some kindling and the fire will wait as it will be cold out :).
My grandmother used to get up every morning to sort out the fire which was kept burning most of the time. She had a fireplace where you could shut off the flow of air to slow the burn down overnight. V handy if the only source of heat for the house is a fire. She received free coal, being a miner’s widow.
It’s my turn to make the tea this morning anyway so being downstairs makes me handily placed to put the kettle on. Not yet though. Twirly. Had meant to stay up to watch Luke the Nuke last night but he didn’t come on until quite late so after the first leg I left Tom and THG to it and hit the hay.
The Davies family Christmas meal is today. We all appeared yesterday afternoon although Hannah and George got here first, dumped their gear and went straight to the pub. Reminds me of myself in my younger days going home to the Isle of Man at Christmas. Our local was The Crosby Hotel which was a mile and a half away from the house. The walk home from the pub was very dark once you left the main road. There was a country lane for half the walk where sometimes I had to keep to the middle of the road to feel the camber so that I knew I wasn’t about to fall into the ditch at the side. It was that dark. Long time ago now. These days we have Uber, though not in the Isle of Man I don’t think.
It’s a bit of a shame in a way that Uber has arrived in Lincoln as it has seriously affected the local taxi trade. Mind you you can usually get an uber even if you have to wait ten minutes but it used to be that if you hadn’t booked a taxi well in advance the chances of getting one to pick you up from a party in the wee small hours of the morning were pretty remote. I’ve noticed that very few taxi drivers are from Lincoln any more and I suspect hardly any Uber drivers. It means they don’t really know the town and rely on sat nav to get from A to B. Often means they take you on non optimal routes. In London I prefer a black cab to an Uber if the option is there. The black cab drivers know their way.
The Christmas meal will be served up this evening in a break from the usual Christmas Day format. This suits everyone. Half the occupants of the house are in training for the Seville Half which takes place next month so they will be off out running this morning as will THG who missed the park run this week because there isn’t one where we were in Wiltshire. It’s her hundredth park run coming up soon. I’m very proud of her.
Gotta go. The kettle doesn’t boil itself yanow?