Bah Humbug!

Yes I did actually get a bag of humbugs for Christmas along with endless mince pies and so many glasses of sweet sherry to make me postively dangerous driving the sleigh by the time I got back to Fiji. Did you hear the sad story of the master mariner who told on Radio 4 how he lost Christmas one year as he crossed the international date line and missed 25th December completely whilst sailors going the other way had two Christmas days! Now you know why you can't get a commercial passenger airline ticket for Christmas Day! The absolute despair at losing Christmas Day, whilst think of the expense of having two - all those extra presents to buy. Some groups, I know celebrate Christmas on different days of the year and I admit that does take some of the pressure off but it is so difficult trying to get the elves back to work after they have been celebrating and 25th December remains my busiest year. The troops in Sangin and Helmund nearly caught me out by celebrating 10 days early but fortunately I caught that major's blog on the Today programme on Radio 4 which tipped me off.
Christmas Eve is of course my busiest day/night of the year and you would have thought that Mrs Claus would take exta care to stay in touch as I circumnavigate the globe, but no, she dropped her mobile down the loo! and couldn't understand why it kept making a buzzing noise until one of the elves got the battery out. (fortunately it had recently been flushed!)
Despite all my business I like to pop into a church for a midnight mass, preferably as I cross the meridian which marks my halfway point. Very good this year with a real vicar, collar and all and pithy little homily
TBC