So today started in the afternoon. Not because of any ill effects of the night before, I felt all fine and dandy, but just because we couldn’t be arsed to get up and the only thing we had planned was to go over to the mother-in-law’s anyway, and I wasn’t in a major hurry to do that. So we stayed in bed and watched the Christmas ‘Doctor Who’ episode, which wasn’t too bad this year, if a little random in places.

We did eventually get up and then pack the dog off into the car and drove, well almost sailed there was so much standing water, to Weston. The dog then proceeded to be mainly a pain in the ass for the next couple of hours. I had wine related gifts, Jamie had plenty of tat and the dog got a bone. We left after demolishing all the food.

Got home, tidied up. Red instructions for wine making kit again, looks like I have to buy lots of things and then buy more things that’s aren’t in the kit. Still, got to start somewhere. So Jamie has used all the hot water, so need to wait for that to recharge before I can have a bath. So tomorrow then it’s looking at the mid position valve and then may be some wine making. Mother is coming over for a curry in the evening, I’ve booked a car for her.

Woke up early, mainly because Jamie was snoring like a train. So stripped down part of the mid position valve at 6AM. Then went to sleep in the spare room, where I slept quite soundly until the dog discovered where I’d got to at about half eight.

So breakfast served and dog de-peed, Santa had left a stocking by my coffee machine. Went back to bed (same one as Jamie this time), unwrapped contents of stocking, mainly chocolate based. Got up, I walked the dog, together with what seemed like the rest of Bradley Stoke dog owners. Came back, Jamie had got up by now. We unwrapped presents and were vaguely nice to each other. Jamie got a PS Vita, I got a home brew kit.

Then we sorted everything out, packed the dog away and then got picked up by mother. Went over to my sisters. There’s Shaun cooked a lovely lunch as usual. My mother proceeded to tell countless anecdotes with no to them whatsoever. So was dressed in a floral flock wallpaper style dress, I’m sure I’ve eaten in a booth covered with the same material before. My sister wore a sort of brown number and looked a bit like a tubby Lara Croft. The rest of us made no effort, except Jamie did wash.

We stayed there until mid afternoon when we came back home to sort the dog out. I promptly fell asleep. Jamie then woke me ten minutes before we were being picked up again. So quick shower and then we returned. We then ate various party food and I fell asleep again. Between me and my sister I think we cleared off about eight bottles of wine. We ended up playing Pictionary, the answer to everything was of course ‘Vagina’. My mother then made a rather interesting faux pas by calling the youngest nephew a ‘faggot’, Jamie then berated her for the next half hour about it, she kept saying that ‘she didn’t mean it like that’. I just tried to explain that he wasn’t a faggot but merely a medium height potential homosexual. Anyway good night had by all. We returned, drank more lager and ate cheese and pineapple while watching Christmas TV.

Started the day off somewhat slowly and watched plenty of items on iPlayer. Finally got up and had lunch. Jamie was working today. Took the dog out, she was being a pain in the ass so that was fairly short.

Came back and finally looked at the heating timer, it is indeed fucked, the heating terminal is permanently live no matter what the switch is set to. A nice job for Christmas.

Finally got round to wrapping everything up. Didn’t make a particularly good job of it, mind you I didn’t exactly put much effort into it either. So that’s all done. Did some hoovering and a little bit of cleaning ad no cleaners this week. Looked at heating timers, think I’ll go for the Horstmann one, it’s a bit more expensive but I already have a Horstmann thermostat that I have been taking house to house and that’s always worked flawlessly. So pick that up tomorrow and probably wander into town as well. No gym, as it’s closing early, tut. Bath and wine time I think.

Started this morning with Jamie trying to find something green to wear. He asked to borrow something of mine, except mine is all size small. He then squeezed into something red, to which I said “Don’t worry dear I’m sure it just shrunk in the wash”.

Watched several things on iPlayer as it was hammering down with rain. When it reduced to a drizzle I took the dog out. Then ventured into Tesco’s and did the shopping. The shop itself wasn’t too busy but the car park was fairly rammed.

Had lunch. Then decided to pick up some sand for the lizards. This is for their tanks, not some kind of play pit. So got that, then ventured into Maplin, where I bought various tat. Parked up on Whiteladies Road, paid a fortune on parking then decided it really was far too wet to be going anywhere, so bought a tin of chopped tomatoes and went back to the car. Drove to mothers, picked up my Christmas cake, and very nice it is too.

Came back, attempted to fix a toy fruit machine, failed, put said machine in bin. Did the accounts. Cried over being paid money I was owed, well didn’t cry over that bit, just the two grand of tax. What the lord give ‘uth the tax man take ‘uth away.

I’m now going to empty the dish washer, let the dog out for a piss then take a bath. Tonight once again I’m making a curry. And no it’s not bloody Turkey curry. Tomorrow I look at the heating timer, I can hardly contain the excitement.

I spent the entire day working on the new project again. It’s still interesting, but does require some proper design now after a lot of messing about. But that’s going to be a job for the new year. That’s it now for 2012 work wise.

So have a ton of projects to do over Christmas. No idea how many will get done. Will probably start with the heating and go from there.

Walked the dog. Went to the gym. That’s about it really, time to move into Christmas mode, and that as normal will start with a bath. And I need to phone my mother, I’ll turn into Scrooge then.

So spent the day working on the new project, which is very interesting. Lots of maths, lots of probability theorem. It doesn’t do anything exciting yet, just produces lots of data tables. Still, behind every great game, is usually a great spreadsheet.

Walked the dog in the rain. Sarah came round and brought the carpet cleaner back. Another fun job I can do over Christmas again.

Then we decided to go to Tesco’s and do a bit of a Christmas interim shop, you know, pick up beer, crisps, beer. Got to the till, I say to Jamie that I forgot the pineapple for the pineapple chunks. So off he goes and gets a couple of tins. He comes back and says they are buy one get one free and puts them on the conveyor and I say, “Only get them if they are Dolphin Friendly mind.” Dutifully he picks up one of the tins and starts scanning the label. The old ones are indeed, still the best.

Went to the gym. Ran. Ate salad. Now no new torture porn has turned up this week, so will be catching up with telly instead.

Last work day tomorrow. Last gym day before Christmas as well. Still waiting for a few things to turn up in the post.

So started the day at 6:30AM, the dog was already on edge and had three attempts at eating her breakfast. Mind you when she got into the car she was fine. I was back in bed by 7:15. I didn’t start work until about 10:30, but I have been doing a lot of extra hours recently in research.

Started by adding some of Al’s requests to the TCP/IP stuff then fixed a few issues found in the audio library. Worked through lunch as the weather was just appalling. Work for the rest of the day was very interesting, it goes back basically to stuff I was working on probably twenty years ago. Almost to the stage where I’m going to hook out twenty year old code. It’s very math based, but I find it very interesting.

Decided not to go to the gym, but to have a bath and settle down for the evening. Managed to get through a hell of a lot of stored TV. Finally we got the tree up. So I guess it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.