Christmas

It feels very much like my first Christmas up in the ‘Deen, what with being house bound, friends and family some distance away and there being a decided chill in the air. Now, as with then, I woke up to We Three Kings in my ears with all the rabbit holes of memories it brings with it. The key difference this time is that the lockdown has given everyone practice of staying in touch across the distance. Fortunately or unfortunately, that means I have several family zoom calls to jump on. It is a small inconvenience I guess, given the year we have all had - the best of years and the worst of years to use that oft quoted line from Dickens. ...

\\\* It’s that time of the year again in which light, or more correctly it’s absence, defines everything out here; the wet, cold, barely light mornings morphing into grey overcast afternoons which in turn become dark evenings just in time for the trek back home. I, like everyone else out here, am finding that I have little energy to be out and about, the lure of spending time indoors, bar dragging myself out to church and back, proving too strong. The lethargy extends to my running, as it has for each of the last three years according to Strava, the 30km I clocked in November being a far cry from the 100km+ highs of the summer months. From the comfort of my duvet, I wonder how folk out here survived back in the day. I suppose that is why there is a rich tradition of the literature of immigrants, those who bear the shadow of elsewhere - to borrow a turn of phrase from Elif Shafak’s 10 minutes 38 seconds in This Strange World. ...

Snowed in on my first Aberdeen Christmas… \\\* As I write this I am slouched in a chair, head banging and eyes sore from the remnant of a cold, the only hint of Christmas out here being the podcast I am listening to, profering explanations for the Star of Bethlehem. In my head though, I am back to my first proper Aberdeen Christmas from which this picture comes, the enduring image being one of snow, bitter cold and loads of time for introspection. Many years ago, when I still was in children’s Sunday School in the University Chapel my family attended, the carol service and reeling off lengthy passages committed to memory were most looked forward to, alongside rice and plentiful chicken. At one of those, I played the Magi with Myrrh, in addition to the scripture memory. Since then, the story of the Magi who bearing gifts has always intrigued me, particularly as it relates to the moving star. ...

Wordle 382: \\\* We brave the howl ing wind, wincing on the odd occasion when its icy fingers somehow reach within the folds of our coats to touch our necks. Along the snow covered streets, the children play, their shrieks of joy as they spin again and again piercing the air a hundred hundred times until they drop with exhaustion. From the coffee shop around the corner, different caramel drizzled drinks bring back their strength. This is the plan, to - with any luck - keep them so occupied that all they can do on the train home is sleep, so we get some peace and quiet.

Although the lights have been on around town for a while now, only now with the office Christmas party a few days away has any sense of good cheer begun to rear its head. In addition to the bunting everywhere (and our very own special office Christmas tree), the subject of Christmas plans has now seeped into our coffee machine conversations, as has the buzz around the office secret Santa reveal. The Christmas party is definitely a highlight of the season, not least for the special costumes a certain someone breaks out year after year and the alcohol enabled banter which in my view tends to reveal the inner workings of peoples minds more often than not. On a personal note, I am looking forward to catching up with a couple of friends of mine ahead of Thursday, which means I’ll be out everyday from Tuesday till Friday when I hop on my flight down south to formally kick off my period of unplugging. ...

Image Source A year ago if you asked me how well I enjoyed my own company, on a scale of 1 to 10 I would place myself somewhere between 9 and 9.5, the 0.5 my attempt at modesty. Pressed for evidence, I would point to the various things I did alone without so much as a flutter of an eyelid — Football Manager, a substantial list of feeds subscribed to in my Feedly, a number of series I watch obsessively and any number of books I have my nose in from time to time. ...

Food, fluids and friendships.. The highlights of days of Christmas past..

Each year, my Christmas party silly season kicks off earlier than the last - this time on the 24th of November - the venue being the soon to close Marcliffe set in the lush woodlands of the Royal Deeside. We are there at the behest of the black and minority ethnic engineering association, for an evening of music, dance, networking and speeches to celebrate the fabulous year they have had of making engineering sexy to BME kids across the ‘shire. My initial response of excitement when news of the gala breaks segues into one of trepidation as the day draws near, the black tie dress code nothing like my far more typical jeans and t-shirt fare. On the day, just before leaving my house, I find out that I have somehow failed to spot the one key fact, arrivals being scheduled for 6.30pm, not the 7pm I have planned for, cue a rushed final phase of preparation and a quick hop into my old banger for the drive across town. I arrive almost forty five minutes late, thanks to a wrong turn and some traffic down Great Western road. In the end, it turns out I really shouldn’t have been that worried, people are still arriving at 8.30pm, african time I guess. The event itself goes well - overly posh food aside - I get to prance and pose for pictures with a few old chums, and a wide range of people; current students, professionals across a range of Engineering professions and a number of industry stalwarts. By the time I sneak off at 11.30pm, there is no doubt in my mind it has been a thoroughly engaging evening. ...

&safe=active Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Aperitivo, on Bon-Accord Street, is where this year’s Christmas silly season kicks off for me, and coming so soon after my return from Nigeria - with all the food I was force fed - part of me cringes at the thought of yet more food. In the end my desire to avoid giving yet more ammunition to the AJ-is-a-snob brigade makes me decide to attend. I just about make it to the party, keeping G waiting on the corner of Union and Bon-Accord for almost fifteen minutes. It is a terrible time to be out and about; it is piddling, there is a strong wind and Union Street is chock full of the rush hour traffic at just before six pm. In going home first, rather than directly from work, my gamble has failed spectacularly; missing the bus from across the road at home meaning I have to walk briskly to cover the twenty minute walk in fifteen. G - never the type to let an opportunity to lay in to someone - does give me a right going as we walk the short distance from the junction towards our final destination for the night after I arrive. It matters little that we are the first ones in by ten minutes past six, or that the table has been booked for a seven pm start. ...