The home stretch

Ever since my days working at a construction company, which closed for two weeks of Christmas, the thought of working between Christmas and New Year has been an anathema for me, so I find myself in the final week before some well-deserved time off. 

To be honest, the construction company spoilt me, as the truth is that my three to four days of holiday usually get me much less than two weeks.  This year I get nine days off, which is really just a week off with a weekend each end, but let's not split the cracker before the turkey is basted.

This final week will be pretty busy, since it makes sense for everyone if I can close down as many actions as possible before the break, since a week off and as many mince pies as I can eat will rot even the most sturdy of brains down to something resembling mince pie filling.  The trick is of course to write down last thing Friday everything I will need to do for the first couple of days back at work.  If only I didn't also lose the power to read, they would come in very useful.

Other news in the Scobi household is that the weather is getting right on my wotsits.  I am meant to be having a new shed erected Tuesday, something I will chase today to see the likelihood of it actually happening.  I would also desperately like to be giving my new door frame an undercoat, and making good the render on the outside, but both activities really need to be done in temperatures ten degrees centigrade or higher, and the prospect of the thermometer reaching that heady number are about as likely as the trains running on time.

Finally, spare a thought for my relics.  They flew from Spain (twenty degrees, rained twice last month) to the UK (minus wotever, snowing constantly) last Tuesday, having had to re-arrange their flight from two weeks earlier, which was cancelled due to snow.  They were due to return on Saturday, so on Friday night they stayed at a Gatwick hotel ready for their 0620 flight Saturday morning.  They were on the Easyjet plane, but due to the cold, the rear doors could not be fully closed, and by the time the engineers had finished their full English and attended to said door, the snow was thickly falling and they were returned to the terminal.  They bought a flight from Monarch, and got to 1800 hours before being told the flight was going nowhere, to arrive back home at 2330 hours.  The next Easyjet flight is not until Christmas Eve, so they have gone Monarch whose prices have mysteriously doubled in the intervening day, for this coming Tuesday.  Let's hope the snow stays away and the airport schedule returns to something like normal so their low-priority flight can get off the ground.  Needless to say they may well not come back to the UK half way through their six months next year.