Do you have crabbies?

I like beer.
I also like ginger beer (even ignoring the obvious connotations).
An obvious product of these two facts was to try the advertised Crabbie's alcoholic ginger beer.  I decided to put this plan into action on a recent shopping trip to Sainsburys and celebrate the final weekend before returning to the metaphorical grindstone.  It made sense to me that such a delicacy would be for sale in the beer aisle.  After several minutes scanning the bottles, a young lady assistant approached:

"Can I help sir?"
"Possibly, do you have Crabbie's"

This could have gone one of two ways, I'm sure you understand.  Fortunately, I came out of the situation unscathed and was guided to the cider aisle, I'm sure that made sense to someone where I made a purchase of one bottle.  Why just the one?  Several reasons, partly because if it is skank I haven't lost much, partly because those who know me or indeed read one of my previous blogs will know that Russ and drinking don't go together well but also because I am as tight as a camel's arse in a sandstorm.  If you are interested, assuming you enjoy beer and ginger (d'uh), I must report that this was indeed a fine drink.

So, the celebration marks the end of Christmas and new year celebrations, for our household at least.  How was Christmas for you?  I enjoyed it very much, thanks for asking.  A few highlights.  Firstly, to open the Christmas celebrations for 2009, we all got absolutely soaked watching Father Christmas turn on the light, yes singular, we only saw one work immediately, in Gloucester City centre.  Then there was much excitement Christmas morning, excitement with the realisation that Father Christmas had been and emptied his sack all over our living room - the kids were quite happy as well.



Another highlight is, of course, the time spent with family and friends.  Christmas day was spent at my brother and his wife's house where Sharon laid on an excellent dinner and Darrel provided the musical entertainment by demonstrating his prowess as a rock queen.  Invitations to other family and friends houses, notably my mum's and Wendy's over the next couple of days ensured that not only did we enjoy good company but also vast amounts of food was consumed and, even better, we didn't have to cook any of it.  Now, if you are anything like me and eat everything in sight before a busy day doing stuff all, you might have put on a couple of pounds, or possibly stone.  Now, I'm guessing that my readership doesn't qualify as one of the beautiful people of the internet but if you are then having to cut back for a while and get off your lazy arse may be the least of your worries.  You may find yourself being visited by the fat police and being excommunicated and deemed too fat to find your true love.  Harsh.