Snow-woman, no cry

Take a look at this photo.  What do you see?  That's right, a solitary snowman on the shore of an alpine lake, gazing pensively into the deep, still waters.  A sight for sore eyes, and indeed so much so that it enticed me down from the path to take a picture.  It wasn't the most beautifully crafted snowman, but it did have breasts (bet you any money that its creator was male).  No, it was the serenity of the scene that made it so special.  I took the picture and would have taken more but CG, on his way to join me, knocked its head off.  The torso and breasts remained.  The head rolled gently over the shingle and came to rest on a pile of stones.  Sorry, snowman.  Or should I say snow-woman.  (Interesting that spellcheck forces me to insert a hyphen for the latter.  But only if you are a punctuation buff like me.)

So this is Christmas, and what have you done.  Well, in CG's case, you've decapitated a snowman (woman), amongst other things.  Another year is almost over.  Some people are dreading 2012, but not me.  It has a nice ring to it.  Just for once, I am extremely grateful NOT to be residing in the UK, what with the upcoming Olympic Games.  I reckon we should have left all that behind in Ancient Greece.  Modern Greece could certainly do with the income.  

When I was little, I hated it when people said, on December 27th, that Christmas was over.  Or when they asked, how was your Christmas?  I would always reply, indignantly, that there were ten days left of it.  My daughters are exactly the same, even without being brainwashed by me.  We have done Christmas proud for the last four days, but tonight we cannot face lighting the 38 candles on our tree, for which you have to be present - obviously, to light it, but I mean to ensure that whole house doesn't catch fire - so we are retreating to our room to watch three hours of TV from dear old Blighty (is Yusef finally dead?  Hope so).  Upstairs, Titus has muscled in on Hedda's sleepover.  He was offered one of his own but chickened out at the last minute.  The prospect of sleeping in the cellar of his support teacher's house was too creepy, and I've got to say I don't blame him.  

Last but not least I must salute our venerable turkey.  CG specifically requested that we should have 'enough left over for a sandwich or two' after the Christmas dinner.  Three days on, we still have a mountain of turkey meat in our fridge.  Nobody else can face any more, so it looks like turkey sandwiches for CG till 2012 pops it merry little head round the door.