Month: December 2025

Nice, Just A Quiet One.

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

This week’s title is homage to the only response possible when someone asks how your Christmas was. Well, maybe that’s just me, as our festivities are typically quiet and uneventful and by the time I meet any human beings again post xmas I am in no mental state to be having actual conversations whilst also dealing with the existential crisis of returning to work.

To be fair, our festive period was exactly as described, with just the four of us on the day itself, (Me, Emily, my Mum and Louise once she finished work), and I’ll be honest, the majority of hours of my xmas day were spent cooking things. But the meal was nice, despite feeling so full I might die within minutes of starting to eat, due in no small part to deciding upon the wrong starter. A whole baked camembert with bread each was perhaps not the smartest choice with a turkey dinner to follow.

The gifting theme this year was driven by Louise finding these things online. So my Mum, Emily and Mikey and Rebecca, Tom and the boys all got one of these.

Boxing Day saw the boys visit us for their round two of present opening and a Carrs pasty bonanza for tea (if you’re from Bolton, you’ll know). That was Louise’s one day off as she returned to work again on Saturday to continue her less than festive “break”. I just felt quite pleased to recognise that it was actually Saturday. There was a bin collection on the same day that had it not been for the kindness of our neighbour I would have completely missed. It was the cardboard bin too, so that would have been a disastrous post Christmas omission.

I’ve done a few decent dog walks and generally just loved not being on a Teams call for a percentage of my life I never thought possible. For as long as it lasts I intend to savour every non working moment.

Last night, we mopped up some of the remaining Stranger Things episodes whilst eating leftovers from our Christmas meal in a more peaceful house than normal as Woody is with Emily over in Liverpool. It’s amazing how much calmer the house is with just the one dog around! He likes his Liverpool weekend getaways as he gets (more) spoiled over there.

Typically, during my festive holidays my thoughts would turn to planning our inevitable WDW trip the next year, but there isn’t a great deal to do in all honesty. We are a long way from ADR territory and those dining choices are the only things that should take any real thought and those will determine and fit in with what parks we may do on each day.

If anyone has any suggestions for eateries we do always like to fit a couple of newbies in amongst the greatest hits.

Before that, we hope to get away to Mexico in April. I can’t wait to go back for all kinds of reasons but right now I am just so sick of being cold and almost always wet.

As I am now risking sending you all (both) to sleep I shall return to my Twixmas hinterland to do as much nothing as possible.

Till the next time……

Return of The Crap

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Is this thing on? Testing, 1, 2…testing.

Hello again. Turns out I’ve had, and needed, a little break from the weekly blogging so apologies to anyone….anyone??? who missed these on the last few Sundays. It wasn’t really planned and just happened but it was very much required and unavoidable.

I return today unable to promise a weekly delivery but for now, mainly as I’m off work until the new year, we blog again.

Over the years I know I have regularly moaned about work being busy, but I was a young naïve fool, as only now do I feel justified in claiming that. In the late summer I was asked to take on some new responsibilities at work as well as my real job and it’s been carnage ever since. It’s involved some travel too with visits in recent weeks to London (a few times), Southampton, Birmingham, Leeds and of course our Manchester office which, with the commute as it, is qualifying as a trip all on its own.

I can’t say I am deliriously happy at work, but that’s not really related to the silly levels of busy, but more the over arching landscape since a new boss and some changes came around during this last year. Everything will pass I guess and when you’ve been there as long as I have, these Johnny come latelys don’t seem to stick around for the long haul so hopefully this is a temporary thing as I could do without having to find another job at my time of life.

So that work stuff meant that for the last few months I really haven’t had a minute to think about much else, and the prospect of sitting back at the laptop at the weekend to write this nonsense did not appeal. I’ve already been spending good chunks of evenings and weekends either working or travelling for work so I decided to not spend whatever free time I did have typing these posts for a bit.

How’s everyone doing? Well, Louise keeps on nursing despite not really wanting to, Emily still works with me and Rebecca, Tom and the boys are all good, with Rebecca now working part time in a local nursery.

Yesterday we went to see my Mum to commemorate what would have been her and my Dad’s 67th wedding anniversary had he still been with us. She’s doing well, is fit and healthy for someone in their mid 80s and she’ll be joining us for Christmas Day next week. Louise is once again working on the day itself and for a lot of the festive period, such is the life of a Community Nurse and she tends to volunteer to do/get stuck with Christmas Day as many of her colleagues still have young children and they want to be there for the big present unwrap.

Both of my readers may have been wondering if we have any holiday plans for 2026. Well, next year is a significant anniversary for Louise and I, as we will hit 30 years of marriage, so we are hoping to gift each other not one, but two holidays, if funds allow.

We have hopes of a return to Mexico and Secrets Akumal in April. We’ve paid a low deposit to secure our dates and have to decide by February if we’re going. It ain’t cheap so we’ll make a call then as to whether it is wise to once again blow all our available funds on overseas travel rather than more sensible uses. Our house continues to conspire against us financially so we’ll see what major bills hit between now and then before inevitable saying sod it we’re going anyway.

However, our main trip next year is a, perhaps surprisingly a Disney one.

In September we have booked to return to Florida, this time with Emily and her boyfriend. It’ll be an off-site affair in our usual villa, flying with Virgin and that’s about all we know at this point. Our boycott of the US was not an easy thing to lift, but after Emily went last year and found that inside the WDW bubble all was well, we decided we didn’t want the orange turd dictating our holiday plans for the next three years so we’re going despite our strong objections to current events over there.

So let’s see how long I can keep this blogging up, and I’d like to as I do like to look back on these things many years later, and to do that, I suppose I have to write them first!

Till the next time……