It's the most wonderful time of the year

So the opening line of the Andy Williams song from 1963 reads, although midway through Friday I was not in agreement with Andy. 

I had finished work for the year on Thursday, because I have learned from years of bad experience that the last working day before Christmas is chaotic around Auckland. I had a relatively quiet day planned, with just a few simple tasks on what turned out to be a glorious summer’s day.

Having despatched her indoors off the work (with cries of “you are so lucky” - not luck at all…I had just stored my annual leave up and had enough to take the extra day off), I started the day basing up some Franco-Prussian artillery, knowing that in the heat of the day the basing compound would dry quickly and I could finish these units off. 

Next I was charged with doing a supermarket run for a few essentials (and a few treats too). I was dreading this having been caught in chaotic pre-Christmas supermarket runs before, but to my surprise the traffic was not too severe. The whole process was done and dusted within an hour and was quite pleasant (apart from the evident price gouging on popular Christmas produce like strawberries, raspberries and cherries).

For rest of the morning I was engaged in cleaning up around the outdoor dining area, nothing too heavy just sweeping the loose sand off the paving then washing off the bird mess and cleaning the BBQ. By the time that was done it was time for lunch. I had a nice fresh bread roll and planned to fill it with a bit of Brie, some bacon cooked on my clean BBQ, some pickled onions and lashing of ketchup…yum.

Now we live in a relatively quite neighbourhood, but there is this one family… Just as I started to cook the bacon the noise started - the mother yelled at one of the kids, the kid answered back, the mother yelled louder, the kid answered back again and the mother screams at him, the baby starts wailing, the shouting goes on…that’s when I thought of the Andy Williams song, especially the first line of the second  verse “It’s the hap-happiest season of all”. For a few moments I thought of finding that song on YouTube and playing it at volume. But I thought no, I just shut the back door, enjoyed my lunch and let the fracas die down.

Work has finished for the year for me thankfully (it has been a very trying year) and I am not back until 4 January, although I have left myself on call since all of my staff have taken leave across the period. The plan is to do very little other than tidy a few things up around the property.  Christmas Day for us will be quiet.  We have the in-laws coming for lunch but the rest of the day will be ours.

So with no more ado, SEASONS GREETINGS to you all. Stay safe and warm (no problem with the latter here).