In The Pink

I have the Christmas playlist on, and I am loving it! Its a mixture of the traditional (carols) the modern (pop) Celtic, and original old english and medieval pieces both vocal and instrumental, and goes on for 10 hours! Well in theory, in practice it will be turned off in about 6 hours before Mr Dancin gets home, it will definitely be a little early for him to feel festive. Don't worry I wont be putting up decorations or anything, not for a long while yet, but this playlist makes me feel so happy, nostalgic, safe and excited about the approaching Christmas which will be our first with our soon to arrive daughter. I know there is still Halloween and Guy Fawkes to come yet but Christmas is the ultimate celebration, especially this year, and I am going to indulge myself without guilt. Bing Crosby and David Bowie are currently performing Little Drummer Boy, perfect!

Well our advent calendar is up! Now don't panic, we are not that Christmas mad! It is a calendar counting down to our Scottish Holiday for Christmas week, as seen here. When my sister and I were little we used to make count down calendars to all sorts of things, just to help us count the days down and somehow make them seem to go quicker. Well it was something Mr Dancin' and I took up a few years ago to count down to our summer holiday. We had a cover image like this, a map of the area we were going to, and then doors opening up each day onto pictures of things relevant to our holiday. The first attempt went a little wrong and each image behind the door was slightly out of shot but it made us giggle trying to guess/ remember what they were! Well today I decided to do another calendar counting down the 64 days until we head to Scotland! Again I have used a map of the area we are off to and each image behind the doors is something significant for us. We were discussin...

Sorry but it is! Hey at least I did not say the actual word! I am feeling so ******massy its untrue! It is cold here today, cold but fresh and sunny and I have started doing my you know what shopping! Also, me and Mr Dancin have a cottage booked in Scotland for you know when which is very exciting and we cannot wait for December to arrive! Ok, I will stop now but I just had to get that out!

I am not sure what I am going to write today but I felt like coming here and creating a post. Once again I have written many mental posts over the past few days. I should drag out my pocket tape recorded and then I can get them on tape when I think of them and write them up later when time allows. I have had the most lovely Christmas with visits to see family and many communications with friends. In fact I heard from a very old friend just a few days before Christmas which was a wonderful surprise, a girl I went to school with who's parents moved away when we were about 14. For whatever reason we did not manage to keep in touch however she has found me on Facebook and it is lovely to be in touch again. I have been flooded with lots of lovely memories of good time spent with her, mostly giggling! I was spoiled rotten with thoughtful gifts from family and Mr Dancin' and all of the gifts we gave have been very well received. Receiving is wonderful but as we all know giving is ...

Well our decorations are up and the Christmas playlist is on! Bet you can't sit still to this one!!!! What a lovely young man he is!

Ok I think we can all agree that I can mention the Christmas word now but is it too early to send cards? I am feeling very organised this year, all my shopping is done and half of the gifts are wrapped; still waiting for a few to be delivered. Last night I was going to write out my cards but if you got a Christmas card next week would you think it too early? I know I can write them out and post them the week after but I do like to get the whole job done in one go. Maybe I will wait until next weekend and then get them done. There are a few decorations up in our neighbourhood which I do think is a little soon but each to their own. We are not ready to have the Christmas Playlist on the computer yet but yesterday I did purchase Bob Dylans Christmas album from last year to add to it. Actually I do still have 2 presents to buy, for the pups. What do you get the dog that has everything?!

We have recently returned from our summer holiday into instant Autumn but I have found that I don't really mind that much. We have had such a lovely long summer, and a great holiday, that I am actually ready for the change in the season and am even starting to get excited about Christmas! I do not talk about it too much at home as Mr Dancin does not like to get into things until mid December but as for myself I am enjoying planning gifts and even the preparations in the shops are not bothering me too much. I do think that we get into it a little too early in the UK but I am happy to be taking small steps to the festive season! However between then and now there's lots of other stuff to keep me busy. We are going to see Porcupine Tree in a couple of weeks, and then Nick Harper in November. Yeah!

We went to visit a very good friend this week and ended up getting together with a few other people for the evening. All good friends, some we knew and some new folk. It was a lovely evening. At one point I asked a few people what their highlights of 2009 had been. There was some groaning and the question was put back to me. I thought it was interesting as I generally think of 2009 as being a bit of a hard year that has ended well. I have had some worries and issues, nothing too huge but enough to stand out as a big thing for me for the year. Anyway they are things I would not discuss casually and so when the question was posed and I thought about it there were instantly several other amazing things that have happened this year. I sold my first photographs, I got a pickup truck, I started up my website, I saw BB King plus some other brilliant live artists, and I had some great moments with good friends and family. After listing them I realised personally 2009 has not been too bad at al...

The last Christmas song I posted was Bob Dylan's new song and I love it. It's great to hear a new Christmas tune and heh, it is Bob Dylan! It also reminds me of a childhood game. I have thought about trying to explain which one here but it is not easy to do in text but I am sure you will guess it if you listen to the song. My clue is 'I went to the shop and I bought bananas.' This Christmas song is one of my favourites and never ceases to get me up dancing. I woke up this morning and my first thought was that Terry Wogan is not going to be on the radio in the mornings anymore and it made me sad, Shaky has rescued me from that feeling and made me giggle and sing! I hope he has the same affect on you!

Well it is finally here, the weekend when we are going to put up our decorations! Quite a few people in the village went for it at the beginning of December and the office decorations went up last week. I have to say the office is a little over the top, in fact I think my exact words were 'it looks like Christmas has thrown up in here'! There are individual sets of lights around peoples desks, grotto's in corners, pictures of semi naked girls in Santa outfits and musical turkeys that sing when you press their tummies! I have tried to keep my desk area a little more subtle! And there are no pictures of semi naked chaps in Santa outfits! We have picked out our names for the office secret Santa gifts and I have got a lovely girl who got me for her secret Santa last year. She bought me some lovely candles and a Santa hat which I wore at the Christmas party. She is a huge chocolate fan which makes a gift for her nice and easy although I am not going to make my final decis...

I have to confess, even after my last post, I am feeling very festive at the moment. Since waking up to dark mornings in a warm house, which has been going on for the past few weeks now, every day feels like Christmas Day! Well at least for the few minutes before I remember I have to get dressed and go to work! If I had my way the decorations would be up and the Christmas play list my fella and I created a few years back would be playing! And speaking of Christmas songs, the Terry Wogan and Aled Jones Christmas song Silver Bells is now available to download from iTunes, and is also available at other stores for purchase or download. It is all for the very excellent cause of Children in Need and I am hoping that it becomes Christmas Number 1 this year. Aside from supporting the very worth while charity all TOGS (and TYGS) are hopeful that it can be achieved in tribute to the TOGMeister as we approach the end of the Wake up to Wogan show which will be airing for the very last time ever o...

I am a little disappointed with the number of posts I have managed this year. I don't think it will be near to or more than last year. I'm not giving myself a hard time about it but a blog can be a fabulous time capsule and trigger the memory of all sorts of small things with a picture or a word. There are a few big chunks out of this years log! I know now that Christmas is not a time for blogging. You are too busy having a wonderful time with friends or family and so is everyone else! And rightly so! I do hope though that next year I will become more frequent in blogging and maybe less demanding on myself in content. A brief word is better than no word right? You may disagree!!

Following on from my last post regarding the books that Stephenie Meyer has written about Vampires, the first of which was a Christmas gift to me this year, I have discovered that there are three more! I devoured the first book finding myself almost obsessed with the hero of the story and while on holiday last week managed to procure the remaining three! I had thought it was a trilogy however found the third, in hardback, hiding in a stack of books yet to be displayed, and hastily made my way to the till with it! I have now read the first three, Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse, the last of which I finished at 12.45am this morning. It had one of those last thirds that grips you all the way and had to be finished before I gave in to sleep. The fourth and final book, Breaking Dawn, is sitting beside my bed waiting for me. I am holding off a little. I have read through them so quickly I am not in a hurry now for it to be over. I am not going to review them here as I do not want to give too ...

I am reading a great book at the moment which my nephew bought me for Christmas. He always gets me excellent presents, often dog orientated, however this time I think he took some good advice from my sister with regard to my other tastes and got me Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. The book is about vampires. It is out in film version at the moment and I am avoiding any contact with the film, it's cast and obviously the story line given that I am still only half way through! I do not want to give anything away to anyone who has not seen or read it and is planning to but I just wanted to record my impressions so far as I think everything is about to turn upside down in the story, its got that edge of chaos feel to the chapter I am reading! I, like many others I assume and hope, have a small obsession with vampires. Don't get me wrong I do not want to be one, or meet one for that matter, but I love stories about them, am an avid fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and dream about them wi...

The Christmas truce of 1914 really happened. It is as much a part of the historical texture of World War I as the gas clouds of Ypres or the Battle of the Somme or the Armistice of 1918. Yet it has often been dismissed as though it were merely a myth. Or, assuming anything of the kind occurred, it has been seen as a minor incident, blown up out of all proportion, natural fodder for sentimentalists and pacifists of later generations. But the truce did take place, and on some far greater scale than has been generally realised. Enemy really did meet enemy between the trenches. There was for a time, genuine peace in No Man's Land. Though Germans and British were the main participants, French and Belgians took part as well. Most of those involved agreed it was a remarkable way to spend Christmas. "Just you think," wrote one British soldier, "that while you were eating your turkey, etc, I was out talking and shaking hands with the very men I had been trying to kill a few h...

Well it really is starting to feel like Christmas now and parts of the UK have snow. We do not but I am praying!! We got our Christmas decorations in from the garage today, they are not up yet. We had a massive house clean this morning, the full monty, wiping down all paint works and skirting boards and after that did not quite have the energy for the decorations. We also remembered we threw out our old tree last year as it has seen better days and had begun to fall apart. We usually go for an artificial tree as the dropping needles from a real one get in the dogs paws. So a replacement tree is needed before we proceed. The house looks lovely though! Is is amazing how much muck comes off dogs when they shake, no matter how clean you think you got them!! We did however have a quick play of our Christmas Playlist! We have all of our music on the PC and make our own playlists to listen to. A few years ago we downloaded all of our favourite Christmas tracks and made our own playlist for th...

This poem was co-written with Sunpat for a Christmas challenge made by his parents a few years ago. It is traditional to have a new game each year and they have varied from: draw a picture that denotes a Christmas carol, make a hat for the day that symbolises your profession, murder in the dark......which pretty much gets played every year, and write your own Christmas poem. There are generally lots of kids there, and plenty of adults who like being kids for the day! Sunpat and I wrote this one together, in the car on the way down actually, and I am proud of it. We wrote it from the point of view of our dogs, who were an integral part of every family get together, and we thought it should be posted at this festive time of year, in remembrance and tribute. I hope you enjoy it. 'Come Fill Our Bowls' Greetings from old County Durham we are so very glad to be here, seeing all of your friendly faces smiling and so full of cheer. It's been along time since we've seen you but ...

Last night was our works Christmas do, well the team do, we still have an office lunch next week. I bought candles for my boss, which went down really well I am happy to say, and I got this! I am still not entirely sure what it's all about but it's funny, in a really silly 'I cannot explain this at all' way! The other surprise of the evening was getting these! Our boss gave a flower arrangement to our administrative staff for all of her hard work and great organisational skills through the year, she is a very unique lady and brings us together as a team; and then announced that there was a second group gift to the member of staff who has done the most miles this year....which is me! It is pants I have to drive a lot for my job as I work for an environmental consultancy but it's just how it is, I look after a lot of trees and they are all miles away. I thought it was very nice and very funny of them! I have exceeded the maximum amount for the top mileage rate for thi...