Today is Monday, and it is the 27th of December….however, I have to keep checking this every half an hour or so as I am in that Christmas no mans land period where I have lost track of time and dates. The weather can’t make it’s mind up where it is either as a slow and painful transition to milder air starts taking place from the west. We have at last been promised a brief window of opportunity where we can leave the house without dressing for a trip to the North Pole, though there is every indication that this will be a temporary blip and we will be back in the Arctic plume of air again later next week. My car thermometer read +4.5c today which is hardly a heatwave but noticeably warmer than the -12c we notched up in Broughton on Christmas night and warm enough to galvanise my feet in to re introducing themselves with the rest of my body for the first time since late November.

During the lazy alcoholic and glutenous period of Christmas I have managed to lower my resistance enough to pick a face cold that is proving to be a real nuisance as my eyes and nose will not stop releasing moisture which has resulted in the demise of all my tissues and forcing me to move through paper kitchen towels at such a rate I will soon be blowing my nose on my Christmas TV listings magazine which has about the same amount of interesting content. However the tickling nose is providing me with some great over the top sneezing that every man with a cold loves.
It kind of goes  AAAAAAAHHHHHHCHOOOOWOOOWOOOH and is a real turn on to members of the opposite sex who see this moronic Caveman reaction as near on irresistible, and who can blame them. This is actually my second cold this winter, I just hope it’s my last.

I intend spending the next couple of days recuperating and sorting out my house which now has additional books and socks added to it as a result of Christmas presents from family and friends. Being delighted with socks is nailed on confirmation that middle age is well and truly upon me, and it is of real pleasure opening them without having to act out a grimacing smile and feigning pleasure to the giver in a pathetic bid to make them feel they have made the right choice of gift. Women purchasing Christmas presents are in the enviable position of the knowing that a 21st century man in his forties can never have too many pairs of socks, unless of course they are decorated with Homer Simpson or English football slogans in an attempt to portray the wearer as a bit of a “nutter”. That is the equivalent of a man buying his partner nylon knickers from Ann Summers with “Enter Here” written above the crotch.

As a man who lives alone, books are another gift that come my way, many of which are cook books, which again is a safe bet as I like cooking, but I haven’t yet reached a point where I can cook from my imagination without recipes. The problem I have is that I have nowhere to put them all and they end up hidden away under beds or on top of cupboards not being utilised as they could or should be. So I have decided that I need a book shelf in my kitchen to display all these items in a way that is both decorative and practical. However my house is built out of plasterboard and I have yet to find a way to fit a shelf that won’t fall down the moment I place an A4 piece of paper on it. However, I have decided that I am going try once more, but this time I am going to launch a study in to how to do this successfully as whoever fitted my kitchen units has made them stay up, so there must be a way to do this properly without the whole charade turning in to an episode of Some Mothers do ‘Ave ‘Em!

Watch this space.