Getting Ready for Christmas

It's three days until Christmas. I've genuinely not enjoyed this time of the year so much in a long long while.  Ellie is at the right age to start appreciating Christmas properly.  I've had a week off work already so I'm winding down and in the right mood for it all.  We're not traveling anywhere or hosting any visitors.

Ellie and Ben have both come down sick, however.  Ellie has got a vomiting bug of some kind.  She won't eat much, is always tired and whine-y, and is occasionally sick.  I'm writing this having just put her back to bed and cleared up another batch of vomit.

Ben has got an eye infection (a recurrence from a couple of weeks ago) and a stuffed nose which keeps waking him up.  We also think he's started teething.  Jana and I are sleep-deprived and shattered.

The thing with kids is how they bounce back.  Even during the day, most of the time you wouldn't know either of them is unwell.  Ellie helped decorate the tree.  She enjoys taking several baubles off at once, wandering around with them strung from her fingers, and then placing them back in a little cluster.  We bought Christmas crackers today so she's been placing them on the tree too.

Mum and Charlie visited recently.  In Edinburgh we heard Christmas pop music so my mum bought us a CD and Ellie keeps demanding it be played.  I recorded a video of her dancing and sent it back to my mum.

Jana is taking the opportunity of having me around helping with the kids by spending more time in the kitchen, cooking and baking to her heart's content.  We are eating our main meals at midday.  In the evening, we're eating Stilton and drinking port (well I am.)

By and large, give or take, this is what I imagined (and hoped) the run up to Christmas would feel like once I had my own family.

Goostrey to Wembley in Eighty Days

What an astonishingly exhausting day. Some people will go to the most extraordinary lengths to see the bands they idolise - and now I'm one of them. I'm not sure I've ever done so much travelling or been on so many delayed trains. Goostrey-Wembley is not a journey I would recommend to anyone.

When Becky and I stepped off the tube at Wembley Park we were rewarded by the sight of the new Wembley Stadium with it's glorious arch stretching across the skyline (I should stress that I didn't take this picture!). Ah, football... but of course we had to turn aside and proceed to the much smaller Wembley Arena next door.

We stood pretty near the front, feeling very chuffed with ourselves, until we discovered we had to stand waiting a further two hours before Muse came on. By this point the crowd was rabid. We barely had any room to move. And when the first chord was struck, everyone surged forward crushing us in a heaving mass of 17-year old A Level students. We didn't last long before we were fighting our way to the back!

All in all, it was an excellent show. The audience alternated between a state of possessed exuberence and bored dehydration. I was no exception. Unfortunately, Muse themselves didn't seem very excited by the occasion, but that didn't stop them putting on a good performance. Yes, we all had a good old sing-song. And next time I go to Wembley, it'll be with Three Lions on my shirt.

Muse-ic

I'm going to my first ever rock concert next week. I haven't been this excited since I was more excited than this.

A review in The Times today says, "Ablaze with kaleidoscopic lights, supersized video screens and a hydraulic riser mounted on what looks like an upturned Dalek, their retro-futuristic stage show is unlike anything seen since the heady heyday of 1970s progressive rock". Oh, goody! "The cumulative effect here was rather like being force-fed an endless supply of overrich chocolate cake". Mmmm, yummy!