Christmas Time Blues, Dwarfs and Movies.

As far as Christmas's go, this last one has seen me age about twenty years almost overnight, although I hasten to add that I hope to be back to my normal age quite soon.

 

My reasoning for this statement, well for many reasons this year I just could not get into the festive spirit no matter how hard I tried and so in the end I gave up and gave in to my boring side.

 

( For those who are beginning to feel "oh my, its another depressive one - I can only say, "hey mister, this is MY blog, its not a personal email to you ... if you want to read something light hearted and jovial go back a few entries or better yet, go pick u something from Spider Robinson or Craig Shaw Gardener" :o)

 

I have to admit that it all started when my friend from the train let me down by not repaying the money I gave to her back in February of this year. Despite begging, threatening, cajoling and otherwise trying to get her to repay it, she has steadfast refused to budge and thus seriously harm my bank balance.

 

Partly because of this, and a few other things of course, meant that I have heavily relied upon my overdraft facility. I was unaware that this is considered a serious faux pax by the British Consulate's across the world as was a major factor in my ex-girlfriend being refused entry for Christmas. ( nb. she was still my girlfriend at this point! )

 

When I found that this use of my overdraft had gone against us I decided to refinance the house mortgage, so that I consolidated all my debts in one place and wiped out my overdraft at the same time.

 

However in order to do this it meant I could not afford to continue to send over to her any more money and THIS was when she got all personally affronted and we decided to call it a day. It deeply depresses and saddens me to learn that less than a week after receiving the last amount of money was sent over she can suddenly fall out of love with me.

 

Of course, the truth is that she can only have been after me for my money, and despite the precautions I took to protect myself against this kind of false affection it still happened.

 

My only real crime was being prepared to try and find love abroad. Many of my penfriends have found love which has led to marriage and children for some, however my luck / choice of partners has not been so smooth or fortunate.

 

Knowing that this is not even the fist, second or even third time that I have fallen prey to this kind of pseudo affection, I have been forced to admit that I am a bad judge of women's intentions and as such will no longer look for love abroad, or even in this country for the foreseeable future.

 

As all this came to a head in the middle part of December, and I had already planned out my entire Christmas > New Year > January holidays around her stay here, I was at a lose end for much of the holidays.

 

With the fiasco of the UK airports, and my finances in the most appalling shape in my life, I did not really want to face the prospect of trying to grab a last minute holiday, and with my lodger away for the main four days, I turned my attention to an old labour of love of mine, to wit ... my Dwarf Army.

 

Apart from the trip to my mothers for Christmas Day meal, the entire last four days I have remained at home, in front of my television for amusement and mental stimulation whilst ploughing through the arduous task of transforming two score and more of dullish grey two inch lead figurines into units of battle scarred and hardy Dwarf Warriors, in preparation of pitting them against the mighty forces of the Dark Elves, High Elves, Lizardmen and the undead fiends led by their own nightmarish Vampire Lords.

 

Without the aid of a magnifying glass, or powerful lamp, I set about a strict regime of at least twelve hours of under-coating, base-coating, detailing and then fine detailing at least fifty of my most used models. I also recreated a Anvil of Doom base and the movement base for over a half dozen powerful war machines.

 

I do not think for a second that this was my best work, but then I have had little practice in over a decade of painting such fine detail on this medium, and furthermore there is only so much you can do with a limited variety of brushes and an equally limited number of paints. I am content that my painting is at least on a par with my fellow group of gamers, but it would never even get past the preliminary round of a Games Workshop Golden Demon Award competition.

 

During this obsessive bout of modelling, I did manage to watch, or at least listen, to quite a lot of television at the same time ( mainly watching whilst the paint of drying! ) however I was aggravated on more than one occasion by the overly long duration of adverts.

 

Not only do may adverts have very annoying jingles, but they seem to go on, and on, and on - repeat themselves two or three times during a single break, and one totally gobsmacked me by advertising for a savings scheme for a Christmas Hamper in 2007 ... on BOXING day 2006. Talk about trying to get in early, but woooow ... that's just not even funny.

 

On the up side though, the Royal Institute Lectures are as good as ever, I have eaten my way through about a kilo of chocolates and mince pies and have re-watched at least a dozen good movies, as well as another dozen no so good flicks.

 

And now, the painting is done, my lodger has returned and with his the usual bedlam and broomsticks are also about to restart, my remortgage is imminently about to complete and as part of my New Year celebration I always resolve to put aside the mistakes of the past year and look forward with eagerness to a bright new start.

 

So all in all ... Hold on 2007, Dickon's coming ... :o)

How many presents ???

My family decided a few years ago that this time of year was getting a little too expensive for all our tastes. Coming from a big family who almost all now have large families of their own, having to buy presents for all the uncles and aunts, sisters and cousins, it became clear that there were just too many presents that need to be bought.

 

This is a three fold self inducing curse as a) we don't have the money; b) we don't have a clue what to get that many people who would otherwise already be getting more than a dozen other presents from the family ( so asking other people what so-and-so wants is more confusing than illuminating ); and c) we don't have the time to find and buy that many presents.

 

As none of us have won the lottery, married a millionaire, or inherited a vast fortune, we mutually agrees a few years back to limit the number of presents to just out immediate family, our mother plus one sibling, the one being drawn blind from a hat of names.

 

This ensured that everyone gets at least one sensible present and no one is forced to either remortgage their house or take out a loan just to keep up the rest. It also ensured that you don't just get a collection of tiny presents that are as cheap and random as the contents from a dozen Christmas crackers.

 

It might not work for every family, but this suits us and ours just fine and dandy thank you very much.

A Christmas Message

I hope this letter finds you healthy and in good festive spirits.

It is now December 12th at 7.59am and I have just posted the International Christmas cards to my friends abroad that trust me enough to give me their addresses.

Apparently there is also a western tradition to include with the sending out of Christmas cards a letter that briefly covers all the things that have happened or been important in my life in the last 12 months.

I have never done this before, but I feel that in email form, it might be a great time to start my own yearly highlights letter.

Of course far too much has happened to put in full details, but I feel it would be nice to at least give mention to a few things.

So here are a few of the things that I remember about 2006. It has not been the best year for me, but I have tried to remain positive throughout.

Two of my international pen pals got married to their respective partners and six more have announced news that either they are soon to get married or have become pregnant. Sadly also three friends have split apart from their previous partner.

Following my employers being taken over through a corporate buyout, the rules and conditions of my job have changed and it has become a job I no longer enjoy working for and eagerly am trying to leave.

I turned 30 in April and to celebrate I held a large part and invited all my family and friends I knew. I was very happy that all my close family travelled down to attend.

It also showed me how rare true friends are, as despite being given months notice some still did not know where it was, while others did not even attempt to attend, saying that they could not make it without even trying to see if they could.

The other cruel lesson I learned about friends, money or myself, is the old saying "Neither a borrower nor a lender be". I have always tried to help out others wherever I can and if this means lending them money then I would willingly give them as much as I could in order to help them out.

Sadly every time that I have done this I have been badly let down by the person who I lent the money to, and this has placed me in a lot of financial debt and worry. The simple truth is that unless you are a large company with the ability to take people to court and blacklist their credit rating, most people will make no real effort to repay a loan given to them.

This is true for both men or women, near or far, old friends or new. If people do not have the money to buy something large then lending them the money is normally folly as it is also unlikely that they will have enough spare money to repay you what they borrowed.

The other half of the lesson is that I am far too soft emotionally, and need to toughen up, as half the problem is my own in offering the money in the first place. Although it pains me to do so, I have now firmly had to decide that no matter the person or the situation I will not place myself in financial debt again to help out another.

I managed to find a new lodger to come and say in my spare room, however things did not work out as planned and she left shortly after having a disagreement with her old boyfriend. However the timing was good as it gave my old friend Leigh a chance to move back as my lodger once again, after he became ill and had to give up his job til he recovers.

My mum and sister completed their garden conservatories which they have both been looking anticipating.

My friend David has had another book published and this was the first one that I actually went out and bought as soon as I saw it in the shops. Unfortunately due to a printing error the publishers did not include an acknowledgements section and so I have not managed to see my name in print again.

I managed to visit my 20th country ( including all the major parts of the United Kingdom ) and fell in love with a woman from the Dominican Republic.

Sadly her Visa to visit the UK and stay with me in December was denied for some very minor faults and although it has prevented us from spending time together this Christmas, we will try again in April for my birthday.

Other countries I managed to visit this year were Northern Ireland, Scotland, Hungary, Norway and Sweden. On my travels I met lots of wonderful people and experienced much that each country had to offer, however they were all done on my own.

Despite arranging to meet people in a few of them I have also learned that it is best to plan your holiday on our own and around yourself and not rely on meeting up with anyone. This at first seems selfish but in the end it is just a prudent course of action and will prevent you being stranded in a foreign city or country with no idea of what to do or where to stay.

Well that just about covers the big points for 2006. It had many small points both good and bad that sort of evened out in the end, sadly most of the big points this year were negative.

However I am keeping my head held high and am looking forward to a bright and challenging 2007, where I can move on and take the second step on the road to my creative dream of becoming a travel writer.

The Christmas tree in my front room smells wonderful and all the festive lights and decorations are up in my house, as I prepare to celebrate another year in my house. It also reminds me that my current house, where I have lived for the last 5 1/2 years is also the longest that I have ever lived at the same address.

It took me 25 years, but I finally think that I have laid down some thick roots and so until I am ready for my next big jump, most probably abroad, I am content to remain here for the next few years as well.

Take care and I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.