December, 2015 - cushtie.com

Month: December 2015

  • Getting close to the end of the year

    Various unrelated things have happened in the last couple of days, although I suppose they’re related by virtue of all happening to me. Nothing is ever truly arbitrary.

  • Return to the Walrus of Horniman

    After visiting the Walrus of Horniman in August, it was clearly high time to return in December for another showing. And by "showing", I mean "showing my daughters to the walrus by holding them up to its face in some strange ritual of large-aquatic-mammal-worship". Heaven knows what the staff make of a bearded man holding […]

  • The Biggest Buffet In The Country

    One of my wife’s friends had her birthday today, and we all went out to celebrate at Tenpin, a bowling alley over in Croydon in the retail park. Getting there was a bit of a mission; the roads to the retail park were clear, apart from the occasional idiot driver who didn’t understand how roundabouts […]

  • Visits to the past

    Today, I made two separate journeys to the past. One across 600 years, the other across no more than a decade. This morning we went to Bodiam Castle. Bodiam is about ten miles from Hastings (scene of a historical battle in 1066, and latterly full of heroin addicts and video game arcades), in a valley […]

  • Unboxing day

    My cold intensified overnight, and I compounded things by going up and sorting through some old boxes after breakfast, unleashing a cloud of dust as I disinterred old mortgage agreements, a camping stove, back issues of the Waitrose Food Magazine from 2004, a set of hair clippers and some old Tupperware. After that excitement, I […]

  • Christmas 2015

    This was the first Christmas we’ve spent in England in years. In fact, when I reviewed all the previous Christmases in my blog (and here and here), I realised that the last time I was in England for Christmas was in 2008, before I even started dating my wife. Have we neglected another Christmas tradition […]

  • Getting reacquainted with the kids

    After a 1am phone call this morning, I was pretty groggy. I woke about 9, had another call at 10, then got ushered into the garden to play with La Serpiente. Just as a chill wind began to blow and freezing rain poured down upon us. La Serpiente was quite happy though, because she had […]

  • Nostalgia will kill you in the end

    Tonight I went to the pub with two old school friends, and although the first pub was very loud and stinking of bleach, the second pub was quieter and allowed us to watch a time capsule from twenty years ago, a message from our younger selves.

  • Return of the King

    I made it back to the parental home about 4pm today, having had no more than three hours sleep since Sunday morning, and was greeted by my firstborn jumping up and down with excitement.

  • Business class toilets and other flying trivia

    At Changi, I made sure I was first in line when the security check at the gate opened, and by some minor miracle there was no question about the travel cot, despite all the pieces of it that resemble hitting sticks. When it came to boarding, I somehow sneaked past most of the priority boarders […]