It was a nice visit to Yorkshire yesterday and I coped with the 320 mile drive ok. I was concerned at driving back in the dark as I have been struggling with distances and not felt comfortable with night driving for some time. But thanks to a new pair of glasses it was much easier.
The journey up was difficult with driving rain and heavy winds making driving tough. I still remember a near accident I had a couple of year ago when a car in front of me aquaplaned and fishtailed and came back towards me. I still don't know how it missed me but since then I have been very aware of the dangers of surface water.
We tried to stop for a sandwich at a number of farm shops/tea rooms on the A17 but they were all shut. So we ended up at a pub in the small village of Coddington which is just off the A1 in Nottinghamshire. Most people get onto the A1 by going through at times horrendous traffic from the A17. We go through Coddington and get onto the A1 slightly further down. It adds a couple of miles onto the journey but makes it much easier to access The Great North Road without negotiating choked up roundabouts.
We went for the gathering of the clans, better known as the Christmas Party. It takes place every year (apart from last year of course). It's members of my other threequarters' family and it was nice to see everyone. We all looked a couple of years older, apart from those who didn't.
I have to be careful what I say here as a number of those present read my blogs although I feel safe in insulting Anne H as she is expecting it. But I do the unexpected and so I'm not going to. I'm just going to say that she is one of my favourite people and we have a good laugh. She did wonder if I could put comment boxes at different points in my blogs as at time she wants to make a flippant comment after I have written something amusing only for me to follow it up with something sad which makes her change her mind on the flippant side. Unfortunately I have found no way of doing this.
We did talk at length about my big pants. Well actually they aren't my big pants but something we came across on Christmas Day in a game imaginatively entitled The Big Pants Game. Basically two people put on big pants (one red and one blue). They then have to find objects and stuff them down their pants. There is danger involved in this game! You might be looking for something beginning with B and down goes a BOTTLE of whiskey which only too quickly could fall out of the pants. After a few rounds you do end up with a lot of stuff down the big pants which seems to increase their size as well. Most of the objects fall out. Thankfully I must point out that the big pants are worn over trousers, dresses etc and not underneath but as Anne H points out I have an advantage as there's very little in them to start with!! How true that is.
Games seem to have taken a rather sadistic form of late, many inflicting uncomfortableness ( is that a mad-up word - my spell checker hasn't picked it up as being wrong?) on those taking part. There's Pie Face which ends up with somebody getting a face full of squirty cream. There are probably any number more and of course Twister can always end with hernias or broken limbs.
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I take no satisfaction in finding one of my sporting predictions on the way to coming true. Before the test series between Australia and England got underway, I predicted that Australia would win 5-0. That's based on the fact that England have one batsman - Joe Root. But so far England have been abject. The latest capitulation saw them lose by an innings. For the uninitiated, that means that Australia scored more in one innings than England did in two.
Once again for non cricket fans, the term Ashes refers to the trophy contested for between the two countries who were the first to play test cricket back in the mists of time. That's why the Ashes is the biggest competition in world cricket. The so called Ashes are kept in a tiny urn, although I'm sure they have long since disintegrated. The original ashes were from a pair of cricket bails which were burnt in recognition of the "death of English cricket" following a previous really bad display.
Perhaps it's time for the previous ashes trophy to be replaced by a larger one containing the ashes of all the England players' bats.
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I'm not even going to comment on Norwich City's latest debacle defeat at the hands of Crystal Palace except to say that we should apply to have our season ended now and just accept relegation because admitting to being a Canary fan is becoming embarrassing. We haven't scored a single goal in over eight hours of football.
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I was very interested in certain comments about the difference in hospital admissions for COVID today to 12 months ago. A health expert made some very interesting points. Last year people came into hospital with serious illness through COVID. Today somebody might fall off their bike and break an ankle and get admitted to hospital for treatment. They have no symptoms of COVID but are tested and prove positive. They become a statistic of one just as the person 12 months ago was but from a illness perspective they are very different.
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I'm looking for a Government grant for stating the obvious. Apparently young people whose parents smoke are more likely to take up the habit than their counterparts whose parents don't smoke. Well swipe me. I wonder how much money it took to come up with that.
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Just another of my many irrelevant comments to end with today. If the Daleks have been trying to take over earth with no success for the past 50 years, isn't it time they gave up and tried to capture Mars or Pluto or any other planet.