Festive Frolics

Submitted by mike on Fri, 2007-12-14 21:45.

Tis the season to be jolly, unless you are a sheep or the recipient of my annual newsletter.

November the 10th is the traditional slaughter time, but we typically skidded past that. Foot and mouth licences were not required now but we needed to tag the sheep. That exercise consisted of first getting the sheep in the front field with Steph on a horse scaring them, an electric fence to discourage them and the rest of us chasing them through the gate. Second stage was chasing the sheep around a log pile with Kim hiding and leaping out and grabbing one or two of them at a time. Mike would then run around with a tag gun and ear tag them. The sheep got wise to this and butted Kim from behind and kicked her in the groin for good measure. We finally had them all tagged and separated them out ready for collection in a horse box.

We all carried half a dozen individually into the horse box early in the morning and then Kim and I drove over to Galashiels - the abbatoir is the perfect set for an Eastern European horror film, unsignposted (other than a sign saying Keep Out). We closed off one gate and Mike entered the horse box which shoogled around with bumping and running around before emerging with a struggling horned devil and passed it to a bemused slaughter man. This ritual continued until two got out at the same time and one made a bid for escape, fortunately stymied by another slaughterman passing. We waved goodbye and Kim bizarrely said 'Do look after them'. It turned out that 2 were condemned (i.e. lost) and we got four of them back in a tesco size shopping crate from the butcher at Freelands Foods who did a splendid job in presenting them all labelled and looking very tasty indeed.

Ali's school parents night at the Galashiels Academy was a well organised affair and we met with his enthusiastic teachers (most of whom seemed to be leaving since Ali joined). He had a Miss English for maths and a Spanish English teacher with a most gorgeous accent. Kim met an old friend and we headed off to see the Golden Compass (Northern Lights without catholics) and munch revels during the armed polar bear attacks. Dinner at the Indian opposite turned out to be filled with Galashiels Academy teachers celebrating another parents night over with few fatalities. Ali was passed a note with various Maths equations and his maths teacher shouted over 'Alasdair you have 5 minutes to get them correct', which cheered him up no end.

The Microlight Christmas Dinner was a jolly affair and I did not end up on the roll of dishonour since he had not flown enough to have too many incidents or crashes. However, sadly, Ian Trench was announced as having lost his battle with bone cancer and there was a toast to a good flying companion. His memory remains every time we look at the club webcam as he organised the cameras. His funeral was a sad affair but fitting for a pilot had a flying swan stained glass motif above the coffin. I spent a couple of chilly and hazy hour long flights around East Lothian to add up Mike's minimum hours and arranged our new plane G-CWEB a Mainair GT450 allowing us to travel long distances in comfort (over the channel sounds exciting for starters).

Scott's Selkirk is a jolly annual treat with a market and mulled wine and the majority of Selkirk dressed in victorian outfits and Mike escapes to the fabulous book store and into the fabulous deli/cafe where people dressed as french prisoners made us all sing 'La Marseillaise'. We were so impressed with the County Hotel bar and lunch that we chose it for the Calligrafix Christmas luncheon (lucky them) where we were mostly well behaved and ended up at Squirrels to swallow the 3 for the price of 2 carry outs before heading back home armed with fish suppers.

Iphone hits Britain and, deftly ignoring Stuart's abuse and misplaced ridicule, Mike purchases one. And what a splendid machine it is too - cracked of course and with additional programs such as Internet Radio, Video and running a web server and some software to crack WEP passwords I just need to have it working on my vodafone contract since O2 seem to have forgotten the Borders for service. It is not without its problems (Windows x64 and itunes are not friends at all but I can now watch the Queens Christmas message (on youtube) whilst at the Christmas table. I also keep a log of quality of orgasms with the lunar cycles to see if there is a correlation.

Rowing has turned into a manic drive to do 100 kilometres before Christmas Eve and the final days saw 8 kilometres per day (1 in the morning, 2 at lunch and 5 in the evening) being standard. Lots of sweat is also standard. And the reward? I get to print out my own certificate and heat transfer design - woo yay!

Christmas shopping in Carlisle consisted of me getting my eyes tested and photographed (no glacuoma and diabetes today) and horribly expensive Vision Express rimless varifocals ordered. Kim was constantly called and forced to march to chose frames, the rechoose them because the lens wouldn't fit the first ones. I also saw a couple arguing in the street 'where the f*ck were you last night','i left the pub early','lying bitch'... before making my way around a very confusing, but spectacular museum and art galleries (paintings of a himalayan mountain from all sides and a mermaid called Helen were high points). Carlisle christmas lights were lovely and there were singing santas, accordian playing santas and carol singers in santa outfits (in case we forgot about the real message of Christmas) and four lingerie shops with Anne Summers appearing as number 69 on the town plan. The Marks and Spencer shop there has a plaque noting that Bonnie Prince Charlie was there - first Twiggy and now the hero of shortbread tins is claimed by the company. A pub was selling 'Orgasms' - baileys and Ameretto, but I had already added an orgasm to my log and this was unlikely to be as good really.

Sheila up the road decided to go missing. Kate called saying that she was worried as Sheilas lights were not on, so Kim and her crept up with a spare key, crept up with a torch to her bedroom and prodded the pile of clothes (which fortunately was not sheila), then proceeded to sweep the place (still in torchlight) before realising that they could turn the lights on. Next possibility was that Sheila had collapsed in the garden so a torchlight sweep was performed there before Kim returned to announce 'Sheila has vanished'. I obviously suspected aliens immediately, but then suggested that they could try her mobile again - again - they hadn't done it the first time. Kim called, Sheila answered - 'I am in the Royal Infirmary'. The story leaked out about kidney tests, please feed the cat and keep a place at the Christmas table for me. We are still unsure how many people are going to be dining at our Christmas table - some children may, some children may not, mothers may or may not, neighbours may or may not. We might have to get an inflatable turkey this year.

We even had one copy of our rush to press Christmas Newsletter returned as offensive (normally people just shred it or throw it on the fire). 'Never mind the quality feel the width' felt that the entry on sheep had more lines than the one on Kim's father - not realising that Kim's father entry had been heavily edited down as it would have been much more offensive if it had been sent in my original version. I would like to point out that it was only one father and it was 6 sheep. We were also accused to airing Ali's problems (I seem to remember they were more our problems than Ali's who was having a jolly fine and fully financed time) to all and sundry. Since there is a selected subset of 'all' who receive the annual newsletter they must consider themselves sundry (I will add a link to an online version for 'all' as I had forgotten about them).

Wildlife have been a focus recently - Ali called to say that he had watched a piece of grass move and then up popped a mole looked around and then headed back down after seeing Ali. We have a house robin. It flew in and we all spent ages trying to let it out. It was then waiting on the wall for the next time the door opened - and it does this each time - sitting on the wheelbarrow of logs and diving in when we let the dog out - flies around, poohs on my computer screen and then after deftly missing the electric fly killer flies outside (or upstairs to annoy the cat).
Flying sheep were also seen as Flora got the new ram with her horns and threw him out of her food area.

And so to Christmas Day - lots of great presents, especially the ones labelled "To the Family from Mike'. They are thrilled to play with the sextant and Kim is especially pleased with the 'How to Fly a Plane' book. Alasdair managed to deliver gentlemen tailoring to me with shirt, tie, socks and a jumper and Stuart gave me one of my own books from amazon which he intercepted in the post (three stars for working to a budget there).

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