Festive Cheer

Almost Christmas now and I am hugely excited. Ill, but excited. Still, feverish is probably the best state to be in. Feverish and swollen.

Still, just a couple of days to go. Although I will gripe about the endless round of family and motorways, Christmas is my favourite time of year and I will enjoy it immensely. Hurrah! If with less good health and a diminished appetite.

It would be remiss of me to enter the festive season without a small amount of bile and contempt. So I leave you this article to remind everyone that feminism still has a long way to go... As does the war against ignorant morons.

Merry Christmas!

Deck the Halls

Christmas is almost upon us and I am finally writing a post. This month has flown by, mostly from a combination of frantic work-based activity and exhaustion induced cold-head. Still, presents have now been bought, they are mostly wrapped and awaiting beautification (this is where the odd obsessive trait comes in very handy) and the house looks festive.

Nick Clegg has been elected leader of the Lib Dems, which I don't really have much of an opinion on. The government is lurching from one crisis to another, with the only bright spot being Cameron ending up with egg on his face over the whole illegal donations thing. The police want to strike (we won't even start on why that is a bad idea), GPs don't want to work evenings or weekends and there has been disasterous news from Terry Pratchett. First Great Western are still shit.

Still, there is always next year. And before then, a whole week of festive celebration - in fact, I may well go and make some mince pies...

Interrupted Service

November has been a bit of an heavy month for various reasons, none of them particularly earth-shattering, but together they've formed a giant heap of crap that I've given up struggling to get out. As a result, I have neglected my blog. Apologies.

Part of this is my fault. I shouldn't have started writing so much about politics - especially how *optimistic* I was about things that were happening - because I've obviously jinxed the Labour party. The more depressing things got, the more I couldn't bear to look at my previous witterings. So, I have gone back to resolutely ignoring newspapers/articles/blogs touching on the current string of disasters. I'm trying to cheer myself up by drinking my tea from my new funky mug but so far, it doesn't seem to be working.

It's not like anything positive has been happening on the feminist front either. The church has gone bonkers and it feels like it's only a matter of time before someone takes my uterus away because I am incapable of looking after it. I know I shouldn't really feel so defeatist but I've no energy to think positive thoughts, perhaps because the doom-pill (this month's contraceptive of choice) may well be an attempt by the patriarchy to break me through continuous bleeding, bloating and general foulness.

To cheer myself up, I attempted to teach myself to crochet but I am incompetent and haven't got beyond the first chain. Having conquered the ribbing in knitting, I felt full of confidence (now shattered) and I can't do any knitting because I can't afford any more wool.

Has anything even vaguely cheering happened in the last month? Farnham's annual ceramics fair was good, although actually not as good as the Oxford one in October. I've bought a giant, glittering german advent calendar that is practically the size of me. It turns out I am of the branch of my family completely lacking class who believe that anything can improved by the addition of glitter and/or sparkling things. Although even I draw the line at the pink-and-blue-sparkly reindeer from Paperchase (I was going to link to a picture of one, but can I find one anywhere? No. You'll just have to take my word for it).

So, I am clawing my way desperately towards Christmas, a period I usually love for the abundance of sparkling lights and good cheer. I think I'll take a trip to Liberty in London next week and look at the Christmas decorations to jolly myself up. Until then, I'm going to stick on some music, drink some wine and wallow in gloom. December tomorrow, December tomorrow...