It's Freeeeeeeeeeeezing!

Have we ever been in a more miserable mood in the UK?

The temperatures are dropping further and further with each passing day, and the country is starting to feel as though it's going to cease up!

The snow is causing havoc with planes, trains, and automobiles, and the de-icing routine in the morning is just becoming ridiculous now, with even the de-icer freezing over after spraying - this morning I felt like a right lemon sat on the drive waiting for the windscreen to clear whilst looking at the temperature gauge stating it was -10C!

I was thinking if my car could talk it was starting to say to me, "you know what, I'm not going to bother today in this weather", and I couldn't really blame it if it did!

Hopefully the arctic blast is coming to a head now and it may just get a little warmer in time for Christmas, but this sure ain't much fun anymore, especially when you start thinking about how much the next gas bill is going to be for with all this heating being on - mind you I'm glad now that we did a 'Not til November' Challenge in our house whereby we went through November (and onto mid December in actual fact) without putting the heating on!

I bet the gas companies are rubbing their hands with glee at the moment loving the fact that the nation is having to whack that heating on so much, it does play on my mind though about the time when the Russians were hinting that they wouldn't send over the gas earlier in the year, can you imagine what it would feel like now if they refused to open that long pipe? Jeeeeze!

I really do believe that they should have a law in this country where if it hits a certain temperature that everyone can stay off work, and just stay indoors having a good drink to warm up the body!

i think I may just run for the Prime Minister job!

Vote Banksy!

The Work Christmas Lunch

Well yesterday saw that annual event, the work Christmas lunch, you know the one, where you get your Secret Santas out for each other and wear a silly paper hat on your head for an hour or two at most!

Unfortunately, we weren't able to make a night of it, mainly due to the fact that we had to come back to work in the afternoon - gutted, but there we go.

Does anyone else find anything as stressful as finding someone's Secret Santa present though?

I mean you draw a name from the hat - you're guaranteed to draw the name that's the hardest person to buy for, and then you agree an amount, it could be a fiver, it could be a tenner, but once agreed people never seem to stick to the value.

The fear of being labelled the 'small spender' then takes over for the next few weeks, as you're convinced other people have spent loads more than you despite this £5/£10 rule, so in the end you probably end up spending over the odds only to find that the person who's bought your present has spent less than you - how does it make you feel?

Do you sit there looking totally unimpressed at the fact that you went to miles more effort than the other, or do you take it in good heart, with the notion that it's better to give than receive?

Bollocks - of course you sit there peed off knowing you could have saved yourself a fiver, and had another couple of drinks with it!

Ah well, at least the meal should be okay, although there is then the countless disputes over who pays what, and whether someone has underpaid, but do you challenge them as it's Christmas, and slip an extra pound in yourself to make up for it, whilst having that underlying feeling of angst, that the person has got away with a pound?

Then the tip, now us Brits don';t have to leave tips, unlike in the US where it's expected - no, over here we get the choice, and once the piles of tenners & twenty pound notes are in one person's posession, then the debate starts, as we have £20 more than we though, do we put it towards the tip, or do we have another round of drinks instead, I know which one I'd prefer.

Whatever the case it's usually practice to save a fiver and get the obligatory box of sweets for the team, and there will normally be a dispute over that too, with some wanting Roses, whilst others show their disappointment in the fact that you didn't get a box of "Celebrations" - but they do it in a coy way, i.e when they're munching on one of the Roses, they mumble something about how they prefer the other variety - well don't friggin eat the Roses then!

Christmas lunches also result in at least one person on the table saying, "Oh I could just go to sleep now" following their lunch, and also one person who sits in the seat where the sun continously shines on their side of their face and end up sitting at the most ridiculous angle when it would just be far easier to pull the curtain over!

I also find you listen in to other work groups having their Christmas lunch too, trying to find out what they're all about, come on we all do it, and for no good reason too!

Then there is always one person who's order comes out wrong - all this despite booking it about 3 weeks earlier, why can they never get it right??

Well that's done for another year anyway, now who's up for booking next year's do?