I'm not overweight, I'm an eco-warrior

Apparantly, being a lard arse is good for the planet. Pass the pringles, I shall be a one woman carbon sink. That should get my carbondaq account in credit.

happy holidays

I have spent the last week doing very little - after several weeks of being constantly busy and running round the country for work, I had that 'I'm comin down with something' feeling. At least for the first time ever I am ready for Christmas, hurrah for on-line shopping. But we do have to go into town this afternoon, O wants to skate at Picadilly Gardens. And the new permanent ice-rink is nearly finished, so maybe he will get to fulfill his 'Dancing on Ice' dreams.

In other 'my son's a gay' news: we spent yesterday morning baking biscuits and listening to Abba's greatest hits. We had a friend's 4 year old with us; at one point O was choreographing dance routines for them.

Tomorrow we are off to my parents' for Christmas. This will be the first time we've been to them on the day itself since Owen was born - on the years we're not in Ireland, we have Christmas at home and then go to my parents' on Boxing day. But this year I thought it would be nice to see them on the day, my mum is very happy and has invited my sister & boyf and my aunt & uncle too, so we will have a house full and it will be fun.

If I don't blog again before then, I hope everyone has a fantastic Christmas (and may you not have to listen to 'Wonderful Christmas Time' as often as I do, it being O's new favourite seasonal song that keeps supplanting the traditional Trojan Christmas on the cd player).

I rock

Got my course results - passed my residential school (10 points) with a grade 2 pass and my main 60 point course with a grade 1 (ie distinction), scored 91% on my final exam. Go me. Am now verr' drunk having just got in from office xmas outing.

theology 101

O had joined the school choir to take part in the Christmas musical 'Hosannah Rock' (he now says he does believe in god, or perhaps he doesn't, so he is going to be an agnostic for now).

In the spirit of primary school nativities everywhere, all the children are getting 'a part' but it seems all the good parts have gone to the juniors, leaving the infants to dress up as a motley collection of farm animals. Yesterday O was allocated a pig costume. For some unfathomable reason he is devasted about this (although not, one suspects, as devastated as little Mohammed's parents are going to be when they hear he's being a pig too). He wants me to go and see the head to find out if he can be a sheep instead, but I am a mean mum and told him he should ask himself if he can change costumes. O is terrified of getting in trouble, I have been trying to reassure him that the worst that can happen is she says 'no'.

I also remarked that pigs were unlikelly to have been found in a Bethlehem stable because Jewish people don't eat pork, and perhaps he could say that to the head. We got out the bible to check for references to pigs at the birth of Jesus. Unfortunately it fell open at the parable of the prodigal son¹, which in the Good News version has an illustration of him swineherding. So much for the 'no pigs in biblical Palestine' line of argument.


1. One of my least favourite bible stories. I never liked it even when I was a god botherer. Killing the fatted calf to celebrate the bad boy's return while ignoring good one who stayed at home and did the right thing, never seemed like a good message to send out to me. Same with the lost sheep, all that being happier about one sinner who repents than 99 who never did anything to repent. Bah.