Back on Boxing Day

· life ·

We've just got back again after visiting my folks for Christmas. We're laden down with nice presents (including the extended DVD of The Fellowship of the Ring, so many hours of happy watching in store there), and left-over food.

So, what happened chez les parents this year? A huge quantity of very nice food was consumed. My mum went over the top as usual with the catering arrangements, and we had enough food to survive a reasonably extended seige. We watched "Mrs. Quinn's speech" (as my dad refers to the Queen), and a certain amount of slightly drunken Trivial Pursuit was played. Our question pack is getting long in the tooth, and contains questions about rather obscure early 80's TV series which we no longer remember anything about.

My car decided to develop a seasonal fault as a nice Christmas present for me, so Dad and I spent ages on Christmas Eve with our heads under the bonnet trying to work out where the coolant leak was. Ah, Dads - what would we do without them when something greasy breaks? I'm fine with computers, and while I can just about identify parts of the engine (I know my distributer from my spark plugs), I don't really know how to go about fixing stuff in there. Added to which, I have a very small and economical Korean car. The engine is all neatly packed into a very small space, which is all very well until you have to do anything more complicated than check the oil. Then it's an absolute bugger to get at anything.

Anyway, we made it back in one piece. One of our great presents was some money for a DAB radio, we we're looking forward to overdosing on The Goons, Round the Horne and Phillip Pullman readings. Hope you all had a good Christmas!