The Bit Inbetween

Wednesday, 30 December 2009 14:43

Hello and welcome to that nondescript bit of the year inbetween Christmas and New Year. Is there a name for this? Does it really happen at all? Are we awake or dreaming?

So what have I been doing over the past few days? Well, December 25th is just a normal day for me, except it isn’t normal because everywhere is closed and I don’t have to work. I had a lazy start to the day which combined lying around on the sofa in my PJs with disbelief over the amount of rubbish on TV. If video killed the radio star, then DVD killed the Christmas television schedule.

After a lazy start to the day I went out for a walk by the sea with my family, my friend Russ and his family. After discovering there was snow on the beach (!) we instead took to the nearby sand hill with a sledge for some high speed fun. Russ was considerably better at sledging than me, if being good at sledging involves smashing into a wall at high speed. I never made it to the wall, but I did fall off the sledge and land with my face an inch away from a massive dog’s egg. In terms of danger, I think I won. Seeing two children sledging nearby on a car booster seat and a milk crate was proof, if you ever needed it, that money spent on Christmas presents is wasted.

So the holiday is over in a heartbeat as usual, and now begins the sales. My wife was straight down to the sales on Boxing Day to spend time rifling through all the slightly discounted rubbish that nobody wanted two days ago.

I hate shopping at most times, but sales make the experience even worse. Hordes of women fighting to the death over a wispy bit of material that has been tugged out of shape by all the fighting and has probably been soiled by twenty people who tried it on before it ended up on the sale rack. This year I managed to avoid the Boxing Day sales, but it all went wrong for me the next day when I had to go along with my wife to return some jeans that she had bought the day before and were too big. I had to kick and punch my way into the shop only to find that they wouldn't exchange anything until 2 days after the sale began. The following day she tried again to return them while I stayed out of the shop, but I was eventually forced to enter the battle zone when we found she had lost her keys in the foray.

Things to avoid in 2010:

• Sales
• Walls
• Dog mess