Ask UK

Working night shift 8-8 over Christmas so will have a proper Christmas Day with my wife and daughter (+bf) on Sunday.
Pain in the arse but… triple time so January pay will be nice.
Had an early Christmas down at my brother’s which was bloody great. Don’t get to see him as often as I’d like so every time is special.
Gonna make the usual favourite of Brazil nut roast en croute. Piece of piss to make but delicious and really fits the occasion. Also: cabbage in a “cheese” and peanut sauce, red cabbage, sprouts, carrots, roast parsnips and one million crunchy roast potatoes. Can not wait!

Hope you all had a great Christmas!

Not great, was hoping early next year that my job would be safe for a bit longer due to a buy out that seems to have fallen flat so redundancy looks to be on the cards.

Still, I appear to have made it into the next calendar year so Christmas is saved! :)

Have a lovely one and thanks for asking.

It was quite stressful at work and then I picked a virus of some kind that forced me to bed for couple of days. On the positive side, I recovered from the virus just in time for the Christmas break, so I have that going for me, which is nice.

Still recovering from this flu. Had a couple of days where it wiped me out again and had to call in sick two weeks after the initial fever stage. Now stuck with a cough and sniffly nose!

Dad is still in hospital but is getting much better. He's mentally a lot better too, I think him being around people all the time is doing him a lot of good. He even said he doesn't want to be discharged home which is an enormous 180 for home, he's been incredibly stubborn about staying in his house. I think the message is starting to get through that he's in no state to live in his own. Social services are keen to send him back home though as there's no available space in rehabilitation (for his poor mobility).

Kids are excited for Christmas which is nice! I just miss that excitement myself, now it's just a stressful time with trying to organise everything and make sure the day goes smoothly!

My mate is back from the Netherlands visiting his parents for a bit so looking forward to grabbing a few pints with him in our usual decent pub!

I've completely checked out of work due to the time off I've had due to being sick. Just 1.5 days left!

Alright mate cheers, how was yours?

I'm finally thinking about knocking the TV Licence on the head.

It wasn't the "loony left BBc" or "Tory Mouthpiece BBC". The way I see it, if both camps are as incensed as the other then the BBC must be doing something right.

It wasn't the ludicrous salaries some of the top celebs were on. I suppose they're just market rate and someone will pay for them.

It's not even the upcoming Trump defamation that we'll end up bankrolling - it was a poor editorial decision, but the BBC have been fairly good at owning up to fuckups.

It's the constant fucking trailers now for the Smeds and the Smoos on iPlayer. I only really use it to catch up on Reporting Scotland to check out the weather, and I'm fed up of having to skip the trailer. Every. Fucking. Time.

I only really paid it for this long because the BBC News and BBC Sport sites are fucking brilliant in fairness, and I rationalised it as paying my licence fee to keep those two sites going... but it's taken a constant hammering of eight seconds trailers to really lose my rag.

~~First job of the new year.~~ edit: fuck it, done from the end of the month.

I've been having a hell of a time at work lately, my boss sold us to another firm and it's been grindingly slow getting integrated into the new team. They're a lot more advanced in some ways, but it feels like they didn't really think through what they wanted from the buyout, other than our book of business. I also need to get them to realise how much money they're leaving on the table by sticking to their old ways, but we'll see. The old boss is mentally checked out, he's been ready to retire for ages.

I've been excited for this upcoming week, we're staying with some friends for Christmas. The kiddo is much better behaved around company, so it's tactically genius. So far so good. Lots of time on trains though.

Leominster was interesting. We'll know around February if they want her for the job. The Black Swan took good care of us, and the local accent wasn't as difficult as I was worried. The kiddo slept well perhaps because of the hubbub downstairs, and not in spite of it.

It is slightly too small a town for a trio of ridiculous loudmouth Americans, but it's commutable from Hereford, where the library is very charming and the people are very good hearted. We happened to be in town for their Christmas tractor parade, which was loud in the best way possible. I quite liked the Hereford street market and their indoor market stalls. Leominster does have some unbeatable antique shops though, it has to be said.

Better. I managed to overcome some of the stress. Has helped that its been quiet and my boss recognised they were partly the cause and have chiled out

Finally stopped work for "the holidays"... even had to work the morning if my first day off just to catch up the urgent () work that a few () idiots decided we needed to do before year end...

But, I feel the anxiety of a massive todo list has left my mind, so I can chill now.

Now, it's just driving along motorways every other day to go and see friends and family.

I worked out that the 3rd and 4th Jan are the only 2 days rest I get.

But, I'll get to see some old friends again... and that makes it all good.