Well here we are again, several days later and several pounds heavier! We have had a good but tiring few days. On my birthday we spent an enjoyable time in the recently opened commonwealth and empire museum. It covers an awkward and potentially embarrassing period of British history, it’s something that has shaped the way that many of us live our lives today, so it is important to look at the past and learn lessons from it. It’s not all serious but was very amused to read about the way our glorious leaders continue to export Opium to China, even though the Chinese authorities begged us to stop. Quite interesting, when you think about our present governments views of the Middle Eastern poppy growers that feed current drug problems in this country. After popping out to visit my nephew in hospital, we headed down to The Bell to meet up with some friends and continue the birthday/Christmas celebrations.

Christmas day itself was a quick trip round see my sister and her kids, then over to my mum before we went over to Orynthia’s Mum & Dad’s place for the meal. Quite a gathering, we all enjoyed the splendid food provided by Orynthia and Crescentia. Fat tums all round; we eventually made it home at around 9 PM, where we promptly fell asleep whilst watching Chicken Run.

On Boxing day City were playing at home against Plymouth, unfortunately the police decided that this would be a 12 noon kick off. As always seams to happen the early start resulted in a drab game, when neither side really got going. The inevitable 0-0 scoreline came as no real surprise after the first 20 minutes or so. Still the first 0-0 that I have watched this season, and it was enough to push us into 2nd place in the league. After the match a few friend came back to our place for cheese, cake, coffee and port. Once again we headed down to The Bell. The plan was that we were going to do onto another bar to see Bristol’s oldest DJ in action. DJ Derek, the OAP king of Ska was meant to playing in a small bar in St Pauls. When we got to the bar Derek was their along with only a couple of other people, whilst some dreadful music was being played. We got our drinks, sat down and then watched in dismay as Derek finished his pint, picked up his umbrella and left the bar. The owners of the bar told us that as most of Bristol had been struck with Boxing Day lethargy, so Derek would not be playing. At least it gave us a chance of an early night, so we dropped Ashton home and made our way back to Redland, stopping only to give Petunia and Simon an impromptu lift to a party.

Today, has been a tidy up the house, eat sensibly sort of day. We have not seen anyone else all day, and that’s been quite nice. Back to normal tomorrow though.