{"id":5818,"date":"2021-12-28T10:32:42","date_gmt":"2021-12-28T09:32:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/?p=5818"},"modified":"2022-01-01T18:12:27","modified_gmt":"2022-01-01T17:12:27","slug":"greyness-surrounding-a-brighter-christmas-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/?p=5818","title":{"rendered":"Greyness surrounding a brighter Christmas Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Not Christmas, but a picture taken (by Geoff Smith) at the Maids Head earlier in the month.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So Christmas is receding into the distance, under a grey and soggy sky. There was lots happening in Canada, as David’s excellent pictures revealed, but not quite so much here, though Boris resisted the temptation to shut everything down. I suspect there would have been mass civil disobedience if he had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Thursday was another grey day, with some rain which we largely avoided. We went to Paul\u2019s for a pleasant Christmas get- together, much of which I spent speaking to Philip Butcher and to Jo and Robert Conway, neighbours who are left-wing cycling fanatics. Also Holly and Joe: talked a lot about their jobs. Liked the sound of Holly\u2019s boyfriend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christmas Eve was grey and damp. My Pinsentry gave up the ghost; so I downloaded the Barclays app and sent money to Oliver and Amy, plus a card to Oliver and made another couple of payments. In the afternoon I dropped off a card and book for Joy, then drove to see Thelma \u2013 bit of a wait for her but stayed for about 50 minutes. Home for huge Christmas meal. FTd Canada, where all were gathering at Palmer Circle. Des and Chris brought nibbles round. Didn\u2019t go to Midnight Communion. Watched Carols from Kings<\/em> and end of The Girl Before<\/em>, which was quite interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Happily Christmas Day was a bit brighter: dry but very cold. Woke late (9.20) but squeezed in a bath before we went up to the church to help with lunch for about half a dozen droppers-in, including Harriet, and Carrie\u2019s off-piste granddaughter Jasmine. Went pretty well. Had quite a chat with two or three of the men. We opened our presents to each other before that, but when we came home we opened the rest. Cleared up and watched some TV, including Vienna Blood<\/em>, a very good thriller set around 1900 or earlier. FaceTimed David and Chrissy, but Amy was speaking to her mum. Got lots of books and an excellent bag from David, plus a really nice pen and notebook. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The greyness returned on Boxing Day \u2013 with plenty of rain. Woke late again. Dot went to watch Norwich lose 5-0 to Arsenal, spending quite a lot of time sorting out her Covid passport. I stayed at home and cleared up. Another big meal in the evening, then David and Amy FaceTimed us and showed us their presents. Watched Death in Paradise<\/em> Christmas special and then Norwich on MOTD<\/em>.  No church. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yesterday, not much change weather-wise. Grey with lots of rain, but not too cold. After doing lateral flow tests we drove to Coventry with Andrew\u2019s presents from Phil and Joy. Traffic very bad on the way there: we left at 10.35 and didn\u2019t arrive till 2.15. Huge queue at Barton Mills, a bit on the A14 and much more at the entrance to Cambridge Services. Very wet after Thetford. Andrew seemed well; we took videos of him opening his presents and helped him to look at the DVD we\u2019d sent him. Stayed for 90 minutes. Journey back wasn\u2019t so bad. Stopped  at different services (Brampton?) for croissant and tea\/coffee. Dot drove first and last. Bought petrol in Norwich, then were too tired to do much else. Watched a bit of TV. David sent some great pix of Christmas in Canada. Did I mention that?
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So Christmas is receding into the distance, under a grey and soggy sky. There was lots happening in Canada, as David’s excellent pictures revealed, but not quite so much here, though Boris resisted the temptation to shut everything down. I suspect there would have been mass civil disobedience if he had. Last Thursday was another … Continue reading Greyness surrounding a brighter Christmas Day<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5818"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5824,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5818\/revisions\/5824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}