festive gestures

i am stupidly full of festive cheer at the moment. i think it’s because i’m now stuck in a huge house on my own (everyone’s gone home), working full time so I CAN’T WAIT TO GO HOME!!! so it is rather lonely festive cheer admittedly. this morning was lovely. i woke and i could see all my chrimbo presents that i wrapped yesterday glinting in the dark. when i finally got out of bed, i put the radio on and it was tuned to minster fm (local radio station.. everything is frigging minster ‘something’ in this city) and ‘last christmas’ by wham! was playing and with my bleary eyes i looked out of the window and saw SNOW! i felt the most festive thing ever. i was expecting the violins to strike up and i would then realise that i was part of a cheesy american movie that they show on channel five in the afternoons. but oh! it was so lovely. but no-one to share it with.. sniff.

because this has been a rather lonesome noel so far, i’ve been doing my own little acts of goodness to spread the festive cheer. like on friday, when i was in marks & spencers buying some tea (ooh la la! shopping for food in m&s? i’m living way beyond my means and my class status here) i noticed that i needed some custard for my spotted dick (titter) because they’re not like the ones from sainsburys where you have some with it. so went a-looking in the dairy aisle.. brandy butter.. brandy butter cream.. cream with a hint of brandy.. brandy custard.. ahh, normal custard. but there was only one left, all huddled up in the corner on it’s own. a bit like me really.

so i reached out and put it in my basket, but then had a think. marks and sparks was packed with disgruntled mothers desperate to get their food shopping done, and would appreciate this custard far more than i would. i knew full well i’d use it once, probably not like it and leave it to go off on the middle shelf of my fridge next to a packet of mouldy pork and a bottle of lucozade. and someone in m&s might really need this custard for far more important matters… say for a TRIFLE or a JAM ROLY POLY. so i put it back.

i expect the gates of heaven to swing wide open when i die for this hugely altruistic gesture.

on saturday i tried to spread some festive cheer by striding up to a huge crowd of nice carol singers and emptying the contents of my purse into their charity box with a bit of tinsel around it with ‘oxfam’ scrawled on with black felt tip. (as a side note, have you noticed how the homeless always have a bit of tinsel around their box/hat/cup? where do they get this tinsel from?! do the salvation army bring it round? is their slogan now ‘blood and fire and tinsel’? it was greatly troubling me today. but not enough to just go and ask them, obviously.) anyway, the oxfam people were obviously touched by my symbolic act, as someone shouted out ‘thank you!!’ quite loudly. aw.

but it was only when i looked into the box i realised that my entire purse’s contribution totalled about 17p.

i also tried to spread festive cheer by loudly whistling ‘jingle bells’ all through the town centre. i don’t reckon it made much difference though. i think people just thought i was a weirdo.

musical sock x

TheMoor

December 22, 2003

It snowed down here and so it felt a bit christmassy as well. I suspect when my Americal girl readers read my diary, they are imagining my days to be like something out of Bridget Jones or Love, Actually in terms of ‘cute London snowing’ (even though I live a good hour away from London!)

RYN: Thanks for the notes and congratulations. My concern I was trying to express in that entry is that I am concerned about raising employer’s expectations and then I have a huge stick to beat my back with when I start with them. Its kind of clever what they have done with the salary review but my concern is that they will want me to keep on doing magic for as long as I am employed with them.

i am in awe of your alturistic gesture. (even though custard is truly hideous stuff, and you are better off without it). i can’t believe you had snow (where are you, london-ish?) and i didn’t. grumble, moan, whinge etc… feather_boa xx

It snowed for about 2 minutes here, just enough to start sticking. THEN, true Red-Rose weather kicked in and it threw it down. The homeless thing bothers me too. I bet they put little sleigh bells on their dogs too. Why do they always have dogs? We once followed a ‘homeless’ person at the end of the night and watched him get into a BMW and speed off. Merry Christmas!

Skybluepink

Snow would make me feel Christmassy, too. Unforetunatley, we just have rain. Humph.

Ambrosian

December 23, 2003

A lonesome noel? Mr Edmunds? ;oD

Curiosita

You put the custard back for someone else. Wow, that is altrustic, you deserve that custard just as much as anyone else, lol. But it was a nice thing to do.

lol – you selfless soul, enduring custardless spotted dick for the sake of others’ trifles and roly polies 🙂 ryn: yep, my birthday’s on the 28th too – we could be twins separated at birth (well, apart from me being an old fogey, ten years older than you!) happy belated birthday!

January 4, 2004

RYN: I’m great at analysing but not doing anything so let’s see if I do anything. I think its a mixture of both. I either relate to people and try to beat them over the head (kind of saying, “I’m better than you”) (like with TheJon) or I hold them in awe and feel inferior to them (like with Niall) (both of these have been previous bosses).

Plus not having a strong aptitude for my first job most probably means that when I have queries, I want to solve them myself because asking for help would either imply (if I think *subconsciously* that I’m ‘better’ than them) that I’m less bright than them or (if I hold them in awe) that they’ll think I’m worthless. It’s all crap. I suppose I will just have to ‘get off it’ but I would have done

I suppose part of the influences go back to my uni days. Lectures and seminars were like piranha(sp!) tanks. If you asked a ‘stupid’ question, other male students who boo and make sarky remarks. If the lecturer made a mistake we would laugh at them (especially if they were foreign). We were all wannabee investment bankers but where are you now dear coursemates, most probably poxy accountants

living in Nowheresville.

nah, when you get older you’ll like having your birthday crammed between christmas and new year, because no one notices it and you can pretend you haven’t really got another year older!