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Advent calendars are back and so is the Elf on the fucking shelf. The kids seems to buy into this being a magical thing. They wondered what he was called and so left him a note saying "What do you want to be called?" I was as surprised as anyone when the little twat actually responded. In fancy elf-style writing too so it must be real. Even more surprisingly he wants to be called Rusty. There you go. He does seem to move around every night too, so now I don't know what's going on.
Fridays seem ridiculously long for some reason, maybe because my PT session is now 9am-10am so it's an early burst of energy. In the past the week between sessions seems to pass in an instant and the hour session feels like a week. But I am getting fit now and it's ever more enjoyable. I can definitely see a big difference in the mirrors from 3 months ago. Though I guess I was at a similar point about two years ago. I don't think you'd call be thin quite yet, but there's definitely some tone. I could be in the next Expendables movie.
I was waiting in for the rest of the day for the promised return of my laptop. But even though it was meant to be here by 2, it never showed up. I sat by the fire doing work and watching Rebus (ahead of Saturday's interview with Ian Rankin - still tickets Edinburgh) and waiting for Catie to get home so I could go out and buy a Christmas tree without missing my delivery.
With my laptop forthcoming and someone in to answer the door in case it showed up I headed to the garden centre to choose the sacrificed tree that was going to grace our living room. It's a tough decision to make alone - what if I picked a crap one. There's usually something a bit wonky about the ones we get, even if they look OK in the dead tree forest. But I also usually come with Catie so we have to take the blame together. The one I went for was a lovely shade of green and seemed symmetrical.
Prices were up significantly this year. I picked a big one and it cost over a ton. The man put it in my car, but I had to get it out and into the house on my own and it was a tricky endeavour.
This evening, just before the York City match on BBC2 (a noble 1-0 defeat) we got it erect together. It takes longer to do stuff like this these days, but if we work together we can get it up.
I had to saw a couple of knobs off to get the wood into the hole, but it fitted snugly and securely. And it's the nicest tree we've ever had. Can't wait to hang my baubles from it. Shame that it had to die for our mild pleasure, but tradition is tradition. It did nearly fall on Phoebe at one point, but we have two kids for a reason.
Happy Christmas all. I heard the Slade song on the drive home and as usual was impressed by the triple slayed/sleighed/Slade pun that they get in there. A triple pun is a rarity. Who thought Noddy Holder (a double pun, I suppose) would beat most comedians in this way?
