Thursday, December 30, 2004

The Haul

A picture of the Creative Zen Touch

Well, I can’t give you photos of the best present of the day, because we didn’t venture out — but there was rather a lot of snow here on Christmas Day. As we sat, eating and drinking, over a laden table, the snow whirled fluffily through the air outside the big window, and when we reached the pudding, (raspberry crème brulée) we toasted the raspberry canes which were shivering in the frozen soil.

And then, the next morning, it was all gone! Not a trace of snow anywhere! Grr. Hopefully, though, more snow should arrive before the end of winter, since this was an early fall. Anyway, I thought I’d make a slow start to posting by telling you What I Got For Christmas in links.

Snow, Winter, Lost Worlds, World Press Photo, Bunnahabhain 12 Year Old, The Story of Wine. And I partly bought myself a Zen Touch mp3 player from Creative. To a creative mind, these things are all inspirations of one kind or another. And for technophobes: the value of the mp3 player isn’t gadgetlike or as a toy to me: it means I can listen to Bach instead of traffic or screaming children. (If you play, by the way, that Bach link contains sheet music in PDF format - excellent resource.) And while traffic–noise has its place, most of the time I’d really rather not.

Footnote: although presents are certainly one good part of Christmas, I’m actually happier that my big bro and his wife and kids are here for a few days’ stay. They haven’t been here for about ten years, and the kids have never been. It’s a cosy, companionable, homely time…

Another footnote: don’t think for a second that I’ll be posting regularly until the festive season is over. There are more important things to do than blog. For example, right now, I have to feel virtuous by doing a workout so that I can then feel justified in being a pig and gobbling at least 3 mince pies and a mountain of rum butter all in one go.

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