Wasting trees

I had a conversation with my parents tonight about Christmas Cards.

We agreed that it is so disappointing to receive a card from someone who you do not see regularly, may only hear from at Christmas, yet all it says is "love from xxx" (sometimes not even "love").  

No news imparted, no personal message.   What is the point?  That to me is a waste of trees.  I don't care if we receive 1 card or 50; it doesn't make me feel any better about myself when I get a card with a typed label and no message in it.

I always write something personal in Christmas Cards, some news of what we've been up to (of course big news this year with Mr H's new job) - even if it's just a couple of lines to some people.

It is some years now since I have written "We must get together in 2006", because that is one of those empty things which gets said year after year and doesn't actually happen.

I've also skimmed the card list down to exclude those who were on it because... well just because.  Now I send cards to those I want to write to and share our news, oh and by the way wish them a fantastic Christmas.  I no longer send cards to people just because they send me one - it's not a competition. I don't write them to people I see every day, nor people with whom I will spend Christmas Day - I can say it to them personally.

My Christmas Card list contains about 20 people/couples/families, so don't take it personally if you don't get one from me!

No hangovers here

We had a fairly quiet Christmas Day, as we normally do.  In the morning we opened some presents and dug the veggies out of the frozen ground for our evening meal, then Mr H took Django for a walk while I did a bit of tidying and a bit of chilling out.   My parents came over in the afternoon after they'd watched the Queen's Speech; we played some vingt-et-un (aka Pontoon) and Mr H. went bankrupt, even as banker!   I said it was a good thing he went into Forestry. 

Our evening meal was melon and gravadlax, followed by roast pork and home grown veg, and Christmas pudding. My parents went home about 8pm so we had some time alone to just relax and watch some comedy on iPlayer, and open some presents we'd kept over. 

Not what most people would consider a 'traditonal Christmas Day' - we didn't overeat or drink very much; we didn't have a big pile of presents, just a few.  We didn't go to church because we don't any more - and why go at Christmas when you don't go the rest of the year? 

Best present for 2010: a pair of Grivel Spiders from Mr H.  These are like mini-crampons which fit in the instep of your boots for walking on snow or ice.  Having them meant that the three of us could go out for a lovely walk on the Forest today, where normally I would fear to tread...

If God isn't out here as well as in church, then something's definitely wrong.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve...  I should be panicking about tomorrow's meal, or out partying... instead I'm sitting by the fire (warming the chimney!): Mr H and Django have been out for almost 3 hours visiting friends which left me to doze on the sofa and watch all four episodes of The Nativity on iPlayer (a very good dramatisation).   

Merry Christmas to all my blogger friends :-)  

Thank you for being there to share my ups, downs and sideways this year!

Juniper

xx

Catch up

Sorry, it's been an 'interesting' week with work and my head has been full of that so nothing to post here!   And it's ongoing so if I'm a bit 'dot-and-carry-one' (as my boss puts it) over the next few days, that's why.

I have realised the similarities between some aspects of my work and designing a psychology experiment.  In both there are a lot of 'what if' questions to ask ourselves.  At work it revolves round rule-writing or programming - watching for loopholes, or odd boats that won't fit, or the way others will intepret it, or a myriad of other things. It's a part of work which can be really frustrating, but I enjoy.   Similarly with psychological studies there are the Confounding Variables which will mess up the results.

On another subject, I got the latest 4 x-rays on disk so I have updated the x-rays page.  They look fairly similar except for the fact that the bone-coloured areas are growing!   Still I looked at them and though "Why the hell was I even thinking about driving?".  This is one of them:

I have told my boss that the full days in the office aren't working; they were really an experiment so that's fine.   They involve so much stimulation, and getting up and down to see people and discuss things, that for that evening and the whole of the next day I feel exhausted and emotional.  It's just not worth it.  So I've suggested 3 half-days a week (starting after the New Year); anyway it's not as though I'm not working while I'm here at home, in fact I'm probably doing more.

Today I am going in for a lunchtime meeting about some technical stuff so will be there for the afternoon.  Then I need to set to some studying reading this weekend.  Christmas is all done and bought and there is no more money left so I won't be going near any shops!  Just counting down to Thursday when Mr H gets home :-)

The dreaded question

One of the questions I most dread at this time of year is "What do you want for Christmas?"

My answer is always "I don't know" or "nothing really".  What I should say is "I'd like a surprise". I don't want to know what I'm getting, and anyway the things on my want list at any one time are normally £100+ ie. out of the budget of presents.   (If you are the sort of person who spends £100 on people's Christmas presents, unless they are your Significant Other, then you are out of my league).

The second worst question is "What does Mr H. want for Christmas?".   For goodness sake I have enough trouble thinking of something to get him myself; you think I'm going to let you pinch my one idea?

The truth is, there is very rarely anything either of us wants.  Or to rephrase that, there isn't anything we want that we haven't chosen ourselves, if that makes sense.   When one is a teenager it's easy - just get some CDs or something.  20s - something for the house/flat.  Mid-40s?  I'd like someone to strip off all the anaglypta paper in the bedroom, replaster and paint it. OK? 

My best friend tends to get us treats. Edible treats. Which is perfect - we get to indulge ourselves on nice stuff we wouldn't buy, and there is nothing left to clutter up the house afterwards or have to keep on display.

Sometimes I wish people would just stop the whole present thing. A couple of years ago we didn't buy any for the family and donated to a charity each instead. 

As it is really only my parents who ask me, I'm sure it stems from them worrying about getting us something we don't want, and I can appreciate the sentiment. 

But I still hate that question.  

Friday ramblings

Well, what a week it's been. Is it really only 7 days since I was sitting in Mr H's flat before flying home?    I had my good office day on Monday, then the snow came on Wednesday night, and seemed to bring with it low voltage electricity into the office which meant the servers kept shutting themselves down. It turned into a frustrating week, work-wise. 

Yesterday I braved a walk round to the post box while the footpath still had enough snow on it (rather than compacted ice) but today I didn't allow myself out.  My sister called me this evening to check that I was looking after myself and not doing anything stupid - she knows what I'm like!  Tonight we are forecast rain and sleet on top of 6" of snow, and ice; so heaven knows what it will look like out there tomorrow.

The long, snowy rope that is my washing line

So, the servers were on and off for most of the morning while they worked out what was the matter with them.  It's worrying how lost we feel when we don't have the links to which we are accustomed.  If the broadband goes down it feels as though we're cut off from the world!   This weekend I am work duty for the King's Cup, in exchange for depriving them of my presence (obviously not a fair exchange, what could possibly replace my scintillating company?).  So, I hope that all is sorted out otherwise I won't be able to login, and I'll have to call on the boss for help to sort it out; it's not like I can just pop down to the office is it.

Anyway, this morning I used some of the down-time to have a hot shower and (sorry but I'm going to mention The C Word) write a couple of Christmas cards, the sort that also involve writing a letter.  I am always disappointed when I get a card from a relative or friends I haven't seen or talked to for ages, and it just says To Juniper and Mr H, Happy Christmas, love from Aunt Ethel.  What a waste of paper, frankly.  

Going back to the weather, I have pretty much made the decision not to go to my OU tutorial tomorrow, as I don't like the sound of rain/sleet on top of ice and snow.  However, I will reserve final judgement until the morning as I don't have to leave til 9am (a friend is lined up to give me a lift). The subject we are going to discuss is mainly research methods - correlations, IVs and DVs and interpreting scatter plots, confounding variables (I love that phrase) and experiment design.  Now I find all that stuff fairly logical and straightforward; I'm sure some of the 'what ifs', questioning, handling data, finding data patterns, and taking nothing for granted at work help in some strange way. I'm not saying I know it all, but on the other hand I know some people really struggle with it, and it might just do my head in to sit through 2 hours of people Not Getting It.