Tuesday, December 27, 2011

"...beat me on the bottom with a Woman's Weekly"

...gotta love Victoria Wood, even (especially?) in parody.

I have had a fantastic xmas break. Lots of mild over-eating, fine food, fine drink, toys and great company, and of course the deep joy of having got presents right (I think).

Just wrapped up the tail end of Boxing Day with my sister (after everyone else had pooped out and gone to bed) finding things to laugh at on YouTube. She's been having a hard time this year - putting my rough 2011 into perspective! - and we'd had a helpful but saddening serious conversation... capped off with videos of (amongst other things) cats leaping through boxes, "is this offensive?", "hell no!", inappropriate muppet parodies, and a glorious dual-homage to Victoria Wood and Russel T. Davies.

Yeah, all told I think we Robertshaws will be welcoming 2012 with open arms. One thing and another 2011 has not been entirely kind to us. Could have been worse, and things are headed in good directions (albeit painful ones in some cases) but it's been one of the less happy years in memory all round.

So far though the year-capping holiday has been a real antidote to all that. It's never all smiles: 3x kids under 6 under one roof is hard work and (for three of the six adult clan members) kids are a taxing (and hugely rewarding) novelty... the balance though has been recharging, rewarding and memorably lovely.

Personally I've been hugely enjoying the nostalgia this year - which is new for me - my nephew and I spent all afternoon building a gigantic Lego set, then this evening my brother and I immersed ourselves in unexpected net-nostalgia when I found this place*.

An unexpected boon of my new freelance lifestyle has been being able to enjoy a longer festive visit to Yorkshire: having time to catch up with more folk, and really enjoy the family... all signs that 2012 will be better...

* One of the many many things Mum seems to be enjoying about being a Grandmother, is having time and energy to play even more than she managed as a young working mother (which was already a lot) and Lego falls squarely in that sphere. So I find myself in the privileged and happy position of teaching my Mum to play with Lego, and so finding an archive of instructions for the mountains of bricks I bequeathed them is invaluable

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