Christmas Greetings!

Merry Christmas to one and all this fine day (Christmas Eve actually, as I type this).  We're on the verge of another Christmas Day, and all that it entails.

For me it'll be a fairly busy morning of opening presents, seeing my parents for a massive breakfast (rather than the traditional Christmas dinner my parents have a huge breakfast, and then snack as needed throughout the day), presents, seeing my gran, and then back home for the rest of the day, and some dinner later.

Featuring this year will be my Christmas cakes, one iced and with marzipan, one just iced, and one totally naked (except for tin foil which will hopefully be removed before anyone eats it!).  Hopefully they'll be nice, or at least the amount of alcohol in them will distract people :)

I'm quite tempted to have a session watching the Food Network tomorrow, bearing in mind their plan for the day:

In summary, 21 hours of Adam Richman eating well over twenty five pounds of food. It sounds amazing.

It's been ages since I made a video, so I finally did one this morning - it's a bit random, but hopefully entertaining, with a bit of Christmas-relating wittering, singing, jokes, and at one point the camera phone even gets abducted, which wasn't planned!

Anyway, I do hope that whatever you're doing, you have a good time over this holiday period.  Do, as always, drop me a comment, and let me know what you're up to!

Twas the weekend before Christmas...

... and I've still got a fair few things to sort out before the big day.

Mainly wrapping presents, there's a few left to buy which my wife is doing today (in return I've been posting parcels for her latest sales from her Etsy shop - do take a look at www.denkaidesigns.com) but I'll need a good couple of nights of wrapping presents next week.  I quite like wrapping presents, if you've got some good Christmassy shows on the television it's quite nice.  I do need to buy a few cards also, we don't generally do cards for people, except for close family and friends, I'm feeling a little guilty as my son received loads of cards from his classmates which showed up in his book bag from his last day at school, it simply never occurred to us to do cards!  Perhaps we might get some "New Year" cards for everyone for when school starts again.

I'm writing this blog post whilst having some small amount of glitter on me - last night a few people from work went out (well, a lot of people from work went out actually last night, in various groups) and at one point I had glitter liberally sprinkled on me.  This morning I woke up, and my wife said "I think you need a shower."
 "I do?"
 "Or a wash at least."
 "Why, do I smell?" I asked - I didn't think I did, although I was feeling rather dehydrated from the night before.
 "No, you're covered in glitter."

I took quite a few photos last night, I have no idea why I took this one which appears to be of peoples feet.

For lunch me and my son went to the local cafe for a snack, I ordered him beans on toast and a bacon sandwich for me, when they arrived he declared that we should "split it" which, I discovered, doesn't mean share, it means he eats my sandwich and I can eat the beans on toast, unless he's still hungry after the bacon sandwich, in which case he eats both of them.

Looking far too happy as he eats my bacon sandwich

How are your Christmas preparations going?  Let me know if you're all sorted and just waiting for the big day, or if you're yet to start!

Finally, some excellent news, this is probably the last post where I say "Time is running out to vote for me in the UK Blog Awards 2017!"

Votes for the awards do have to be in by the 19th of December so if you haven't already voted, please head over to http://www.blogawardsuk.co.uk/ukba2017/entries/blog-thog and pop a vote in.  I'm shortlisted for 2 categories, Lifestyle and Digital & Technology, you can vote for both categories in one go from the link above.  It's only by your votes that I have a chance of getting shortlisted, so please do vote if you haven't already :) Apparently you can vote regardless of where you live, although it's the UK Blog Awards all that means is that the blogs have to be in the UK, not the votes.

Time Out

We've got a mouse in the house at the moment.  I'm not a fan of mice (read here for more) in the house, in the wild they're absolutely fine, but not in the house.

Anyway, I was in the kitchen this evening, and it decided to pop its head out from under a kitchen cabinet and look at me.  This particularly annoys me, as I'm convinced that it knows innately that what it ought to do is keep out of sight, and only run around when no one else is in the room, but it refuses to even do this, and is obviously only showing itself to frustrate me.  So I jumped up and down, banged on the counter, shouted at it, and prodded a knife under the cabinet where it was lurking, to show that I really meant business.

However, I'd overlooked that recently we've been very firm in enforcing the "no shouting" rule with my son recently, and he came in the kitchen, and told me to go and sit on the stairs on time out.

And my wife backed him up.  Off to the staircase I went.

At least I got a couple of photos out of it :)

Time is running out to vote for me in the UK Blog Awards 2017, votes have to be in by the 19th of December if you haven't already, just head over to http://www.blogawardsuk.co.uk/ukba2017/entries/blog-thog and pop a vote in.  I'm shortlisted for 2 categories, Lifestyle and Digital & Technology, you can vote for both categories in one go from the link above, thanks!  Basically in each category the eight blogs with the most votes get through to the final shortlist so every vote really does count! Thank you again :)

Sleeping In

 Jane was on a desert island in the middle of the Pacific ocean, well it was perhaps not a desert island, but it was very nice, with the sun shining and all that sort of thing.
 Then a shark leaped out of the water and ate her. She tasted like chicken.

 Sorry, I'm trying to stay awake, and it's a bit difficult.

 You see, it's my night when I can stay up late, because in the morning I get to sleep in while my wife kindly gets up with the little one, and part of me is just determined to play on the computer for a while, because I can.  But I'm really good at being asleep - I've slept on a submarine, on a jeep safari, in far too many cars to count, sofas, floors... if I get a chance to sleep, I'll sleep.  Loads of TV shows, and loads of films, seriously, far too many films to count.

 The key thing seems to be whether my mind is being kept active.  For example, if I'm going somewhere in a car, I'll be awake, because I'm going to a place, and I'm thinking about what I'm going to do when I get there.  On the way back, I've done the thing I was going to do, and unless I have a reason to be awake (like if I'm driving, for example) I'll just go to sleep.

 Right now, I'm pretty tired.  As I write this it's 10pm here, and basically to stay awake I need sweet stuff, or coffee.  There's a bit of dinner left over, but I'm not in the mood for that, I need a shot of sugar or caffeine to keep me going.

(Writing pauses while I go and make a coffee, and eat two small chocolate balls)

(Writing continues to pause while I grab a blanket because it's getting chilly)

(The blanket smells)

(Sod it, let's crack on anyway)

 That's better.

 I've always suspected that we aren't designed to sleep the way we do, by staying awake for sixteen to eighteen hours straight, and then sleeping all in one go.  I bet that we're supposed to sleep in periods, yes perhaps with a longer period overnight, but with naps as well.  It's reasonable for young children and older people to snatch forty winks in an afternoon, I bet I could get used to having a nap too.

 Anyway, I'm going to struggle on :)  maybe I'll push through being tired and feel better. Or maybe I'll fall asleep at my desk!

Don't forget to vote for me in the UK Blog Awards 2017 if you haven't already, just head over to http://www.blogawardsuk.co.uk/ukba2017/entries/blog-thog and pop a vote in.  I'm shortlisted for 2 categories, Lifestyle and Digital & Technology, you can vote for both categories in one go from the link above, thanks :)

Be Warned...

My wife, you may be aware, has started making and selling needleminders, which are magnets used in cross stitch for holding fabric and retaining needles.  As is the requirement for anything nowadays, various social media channels have to be employed to maximise the visibility of my wife's Etsy shop (well worth a visit at www.denkaidesigns.com).

I don't often query my wife's decisions, because she is unquestionably both smarter and scarier than me, but this is an exception, because she has asked me to look after her Facebook page, as she handles the Instagram, makes videos, actually makes and sells the needleminders, and so on.

After warning her many times of the questionable wisdom of letting me loose on her page, I have accepted the challenge, and I have scheduled several posts to appear on her page (https://www.facebook.com/DenkaiDesigns) over the upcoming days.  And I welcome all suggestions on things to write about on her page, as things stand I've used the loosest of loose links to tie factoids to her hobby, writing posts along the lines of "It's probably going to be cold today... Cold like a needleminder that has been accidentally left in the fridge. Check out my Etsy shop to buy a needleminder, but don't leave it in the fridge!" so if you can think of any topical yet tenuous links to needleminders then please let me know.

So, if you would like to keep an eye on the nonsense that I've prepared for her page, do go and Like her Facebook page.  You might regret it, but don't say I didn't warn you.

PS I am absolutely delighted to be in for the public vote of the UK Blog Awards 2017!  What this means is that I need as many people as possible (yes, that includes you reading this) to vote for me, if you have 30 seconds, a name, and an email address, your vote could be the one that gets my blog up into the top 8 which will then be looked at by judges.  So it'd wonderful if you'd head over to http://www.blogawardsuk.co.uk/ukba2017/entries/blog-thog and put a vote in for me.  I'm shortlisted for 2 categories, Lifestyle and Digital & Technology, you can vote for both categories in one go from the link above, I would really appreciate each and every reader taking a minute to vote for me.  Voting ends something like the 19th of December, so vote soon!  Thank you :)

Windows Network Diagnostics

This evening I was editing a video to be uploaded, watching a YouTube video to pass the time, when my internet connection inexplicably died.

"But wait!" I hear you cry (maybe). "What about Windows Network Diagnostics?"

Yes, my browser suggested that I try Windows Network Diagnostics, and like a fool, I did.

I'd love to hear from anyone who actually had Windows Network Diagnostics fix their internet connection for them.  As far as I can see, what it does is showing you progress bars optimistically filling up, and in the meantime it tells you that it's doing various technical and positive sounding things, like "resetting IP configuration" and "flushing DNS".  It also makes you wait long enough so that you think it's actually tried to do something, and then finally it says "Troubleshooting was unable to automatically fix all of the issues found"., the result being that you think it's done its best to fix the problem, but the problem is beyond even the technical expertise housed within the Windows Network Diagnostics tool.

At any rate, I've no idea what my problem was, but restarting the computer fixed it.

Anyway, the main news today - I am absolutely delighted to be in for the public vote of the UK Blog Awards 2017!  What this means is that I need as many people as possible (yes, that includes you reading this) to vote for me, if you have 30 seconds, a name, and an email address, your vote could be the one that gets my blog up into the top 8 which will then be looked at by judges.  So it'd wonderful if you'd head over to http://www.blogawardsuk.co.uk/ukba2017/entries/blog-thog and put a vote in for me.  I'm shortlisted for 2 categories, Lifestyle and Digital & Technology, you can vote for both categories in one go from the link above, I would really appreciate each and every reader taking a minute to vote for me.  Thank you :)

Finally, I've got not one but two new videos out on my YouTube channel - one is me telling a couple of stories from when I went to Dublin a few years back, and encountered a Chinese health practitioner, and the other is from my recent Robin Hood's Bay roadtrip, and shows me and my dad's epic mini pool tournament, so if you want to relax watching two grown men tackle a tiny pool table, that's for you.

Christmas Baking

This weekend we've decided to get cracking on the Christmas decorations.  The tree took a great deal longer than expected, as I couldn't find the lights from last year - reasoning that we'd had them a number of years and was due some new ones, I headed down to our local supermarket, and bought two packs of white lights for a reasonable amount of money (£6), returned home, and set them up.

Ready to decorate.

They weren't particularly impressive.  True, with the aid of a microscope, you could indeed identify a faint luminescence from within them, but otherwise they were pretty rubbish.  Fortunately my wife was out shopping, so I sent her a text message requesting that if she happened to be in the vicinity of a shop selling lights that she get some.

She returned later with the lights, we put them on the tree, decorated it, and it looks very impressive.

Then I found the old lights.

Anyway, to my main experience of the day - every year, I state that I am going to bake a Christmas cake.  And every year, I don't.  I don't do a great deal of cooking, and I do even less baking, generally restricting myself to turning out a few cupcakes once or twice a year.

This year, I decided, would be different.

After soaking a kilo of fruit in alcohol last night, I made the cake mix.  All went reasonably well, until I put in the flour.  Using scales, I measured the right amount of flour, sieved it in, and mixed it up, but it seemed like a bit too much.

Then I weighed the remaining flour, and discovered that I had somehow managed to put twice the required amount in.

I endeavoured to resolve this by putting in more of the other ingredients (butter, sugar, and eggs) to balance out the flour.  This resulted in an increased amount of cake mix (batter?) for cooking.

At this point I discovered from my wife that I actually needed proper cake tins to cook in, I couldn't just use any old metal tin I found lying around, so went to the supermarket to get some (this was the same visit as for the underpowered lights)

After baking for about an hour and a quarter, the cakes came out like this:

So, they appear edible, and, possibly with the exception of the one on the right, aren't overly burned.  They've had another douse of alcohol, and they're now wrapped in foil and resting in tins, awaiting further dousing over the forthcoming weeks, until they get iced a week or so before Christmas.  Whilst I'm clearly going to endeavour to eat all three of them myself, I should warn anyone who might be considering visiting our house over the festive period to think twice before accepting my offer of a slice of Christmas cake :)

Do let me know how your seasonal preparations are going, if you are indeed preparing for anything seasonal! And I should say that my wife has added some new lines to her selection of needleminders, do stop by www.denkaidesigns.com and check her things out :)

And if you want more Christmas stuff, my last post was all about Christmas cakes and puddings :)