Christmas, cars and cash

Yeah, yeah. I know. I have become the Internet's most inconsistent blogger ... possibly. Well, it's been sort of busy this month. My work is mental right now and I'm working some pretty long days where I have to be nice to moaning people and behave as if I'm having the most fun a human being can have. Yay.

Anyway, I forgot to blog over Xmas itself so sorry and Happy Xmas! Better late than never I say. Unless you're talking about a kidney transplant which is actually better sooner rather than later.

I digress. Christmas was very jolly and my wife adores her new iPod Nano which I bought her. In fact she covets it rather like a lioness with a new cub but with less growling and picking it up in her mouth. Anyway, I enjoyed spending my cash on my family and friends. 'Cash for kindness' I like to think of it as.

Boxing Day was a joy too. I worked a ten hour day. At least there were plenty of other poor sods working too which cheered me up no end. God, I sound like a right miserable bastard don't I? My apologies. It must be my age. 41 is one of those ages that's neither here nor there. It's not "the big 4-0" and it's not even mid-forties. It's sort "the big 4-0 plus one. Mind you, I'm quite keen on being an anonymous age. I think I'll become even keener as I get older.

So that's Christmas and cash mentioned. What about the car? Well driving home from worl last night my car developed a very alarming and serious-sounding noise from around the front wheel/suspension area. It's a hard sound to describe but it reminded me of a metal tin full of bolts and bits of piping, being shaken with fervour every time I went over a bump in the road. I'm no mechanic, but I'm sure this is not a good noise. Furthermore, I'm fairly confident that it's an expensive noise. Yay again.

I shall keep you posted on the situation. Rest assured, it's going to be bad news and very costly news. Which is a good thing ... for you. You see, although we don't like to admit it, other people's misfortune often makes us feel better. It's that "well it could be worse, I could be in his/her situation. It's the sort of thing you say when you get a slightly higher than expected gas bill, only to then see a news item where some poor bugger's house has just blown up following a gas leak. You get the idea.

So dear reader, my festive cheer to you is the gift of my vehicular misery. Whatever traumas or stresses you've had over Xmas, just wait until you hear about my car. That will put a smile on your face as the year draws to a close. I hope my Vauxhall-inspired misfortune brings you joy!

Yay again ... again.

It's Xmas. Go Elf yourself!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1594926865

Ups and downs

We all have our ups and downs and despite being a blogging legend, I too can feel the force of life's highs and lows. Winter doesn't help. Especially the miserable sodding affair that is the British winter. Rain, rain and more rain. It's enough to depress Mr Happy Hap McHappy from Happytown in Happyshire.

Nonetheless, us Brits are used to cack weather and so find ways and means of distracting ourselves during the long, dark winter months. One of these ways is to talk about the weather. Whilst meteorology is a fascinating subject, you can have too much of it, particularly when you've been getting soaked, blown and frozen by it for weeks on end. So I don't talk about the weather much between November and March.

Instead I prefer to revel in the joys of films, my Xbox 360, football, my iMac, food, shiny electrical objects of desire and my wife. Obviously this list is written in reverse order. So when confronted by a really crappy winter's day, I cheer myself with an hour or two of high definition machine-gunning and grenade-lobbing, followed by a joyous time in the kitchen, preparing my latest tuna-based culinary delight and topped off with a cracking film starring Sandra Bullock or that woman out of that film with the hair and eyes.

Suffice to say I have plenty of ammo in happy-happy-joy-joy arsenal to keep the winter blues at bay. However, talking of 'blues' - Birmingham lost today which has put me in a foul mood so I'm going to bed.

Winter my arse.