Xmas in a silly land...

Well, I'm sitting here next to the world's most organized Xmas tree (all blues and whites and silvers, thanks to Mr. Hyper Anal Retentive David ;-), feeling a little bit bloated and a little bit tiddly (thanks, in part, to Robin's mulled wine, which would likely take the paint off the walls). We just finished watching '9', which, if you want a nice, normal, non-freakoid movie is not the movie to see, bathing in our post-Christmas glow.

We had a fairly low-impact Christmas Day - slept in until 1215, then farted around here for a while. Eventually we all cycled into town to Balans Restaurant, where 8 of us packed into a rather small restaurant with rather a lot of screaming queens to pay £65 for Christmas lunch. The food was, admittedly, a bit mediocre, but the company was good. We did manage to not consume too too much, as we had to cycle home (thanks to no public transportation and all of us feeling like tightwads and not wanting to pay 3x normal cabfare home).

And, get this - last night I actually went to midnight mass - voluntarily, at St Paul's Cathedral - and, most importantly, I was not struck by lightning (though the dean did suggest that anyone using a mobile phone during the service would, in fact, be struck by lightning - I liked him). I have to admit that I kind of liked the service, though I was a little surprised to have to stand for nearly the entire time - apparently the Episcopal (American Anglican) church has wussfied a bit, given that most of the service is sitting! They had a real boy's choir - I'd never actually heard a real boy's choir before, and an organ that would blow the roof of lesser buildings. The funny thing was, even with thousands of people inside (they had to close off the building to more entries), you could barely hear people singing - I think because most people were just sort of quietly mouthing the words, rather than belting them out. And, of course, being a bit tourist attraction, there were numbers of people who just wandered out during the middle of the service. I'm sorry - I'm not that terribly religious - but have some respect - it's not there for entertainment purposes only - if you start on a church service, as far as I'm concerned you're there for the long haul unless they start sacrificing virgins or something of similar magnitude. Anyway, we felt slightly superiorr to everyone afterwards - all those silly people waiting for buses that weren't going to come (no buses on Xmas) as we pedalled off into the night. Oh, and the Bishop of London, who reminded me a bit of Gandalf, what with his silly hat and staff, said 'Happy Christmas' to us as we waited to cross at the light, after the service (we waited for the light to change... ;-)

So, that was Christmas Day. I do miss being back in CA on Christmas, but I still enjoyed it a lot... Tomorrow is Boxing Day, and the beginning of the after Christmas sales... Must hide credit card...

Oh - milestone I jusr realized was past without much fanfare... I've now lived here longer than Minnesota, which means I've lived here longer than anywhere since I left San Diego at age 9... And I still can't fake an English accent worth a crap... Irish, however, I can pull off pretty well - I suppose b/c Irish English is so much closer to American English. Hmm...