Stormy weather!

On Sunday we had a pleasant lunch at our son’s house and I had a good chat with my “consuegra”. This is a Spanish term which means something like “co-mother-in-law”. My son’s wife’s mother is my “consuegra”. It’s an excellent word and I can’t imagine why we don’t have a similarly useful way of expressing the relationship. 

Later in the day, after the house had quietened down someone, possibly Phil, possibly our son, discovered a warning put out by Virgin, advising travellers on the following day to travel as early as they could, even if they had reservations on later trains. The bad storms which were forecast led Virgin to believe that they would need to cancel trains in the afternoon and they were trying to reduce travel chaos as far as possible. 

So, instead of getting up and having a leisurely breakfast yesterday morning, we got up at the crack of dawn. Well, really it was eight o’ clock but, even though we have now had the shortest day and dawn should be getting earlier, it was still pretty dark and gloomy. By nine o’ clock we were at Chesham station, the start of the Metropolitan Line, and ten minutes later we were on our way to Euston Square. A brisk walk from there to Euston railway station and we stepped smartly onto a train headed for Manchester at twenty past ten. Sometimes public transport gets its act together and works beautifully. 

The storm still hadn’t hit as we set off and although it was rather wild and windy when we got to Manchester, as my poor umbrella knows to its cost, we seem to have got off lightly once again. The storms have led to at least five deaths over the country and lots of flooding and power cuts but we’ve really had no worse December weather than you might expect. A friend commented this morning that it’s making up for last year’s snow storms! 

Looking at the newspapers online it looks as though Galicia has had the same storms as the UK: huge waves all along the coast, torrential rain, fallen trees and people left without power. 

As well as warning people to travel early, maybe the media should have warned those living in weather-alert areas to cook their turkeys early as well. Cold roast turkey must be better than uncooked turkey! 

I did a final run to the supermarket this morning, purchasing one of the few remaining small turkeys left on the shelf. I don’t think I could fit one of the “feeds 10 to 12 people” variety into my oven. Just lifting the beast would be enough. 

And now all that remains is to cook the beast and coordinate all the other items to match the finishing time of the great bird. 

No doubt we will take lots of pictures of the food, people opening presents, pulling crackers and generally being silly. This despite some scientist declaring that taking photos prevents you remembering stuff. Possibly that’s true if you do nothing but take photos and videos, like some of the tourists you see who have their video camera almost glued to their face as they walk around. I wonder if they ever actually watch the videos they make. Do they then sit there and say, “I don’t remember doing that”? 

Anyway, photos will be taken of our Christmas day and a good time will no doubt be had by all. 

Merry Christmas to everyone! That’s all I have to say.