January brings out the S&M in me. Not only do I insist on inflicting 'Dry January' on everyone in the household, I also declare it to be 'Low Carb January' (I do the shopping and cooking so Tough Titties) and 'Start Running Again January' (a perennial struggle, need someone to invent bottom-bra). Sometimes I attempt 'Caffeine Free January' too but I've found it's not really compatible with life.
I dislike the term 'Dry January'. It brings to mind nappies and pull-ups and the smell of urine-sodden sheets. Some people call it a Dryathlon and request sponsorship for not drinking alcohol for 31 days. What? I'm a bit bewildered by that. Isn't the point of sponsorship to do something challenging? And by that I mean not something that 75% of the worlds population do as part of just existing. What next - sponsorship for remembering to clean your teeth every day for a month? Or changing your pants? Or - (Hah! Don't be ludicrous.) - not bothering to shave for, like, the whole of November? Oh.
Besides, if someone's sufficiently impressed by you quitting booze for a month that they're prepared to cough up good money then they must be either very worried about your drinking, or very worried about their own. You should probably take the sponsorship money along to Alcoholics Anonymous. In person.
Anyway, on the International Scale of Debauchery, I elect to recalibrate to zero every January, knowing that I'm likely to gradually slink back up to 10 over the next twelve months. Boring, definitely, but it's why I'm not a fat alcoholic. Shut up.
Weather-wise our first winter in Portugal has been uncommonly fine - dry and sunny since early December, until a few days ago, when all the pent up rain fell out of the sky at the same time. The weather here is generally quite changeable, on an hourly basis, which excites R a great deal. He fancies himself as a bit of a weather buff and the forecast has always been his favourite telly program. For Christmas this year I bought him a super-duper weather station. It has a data collecting gadget that he's attached to a pole in the garden, and an indoor digital monitor and information display and it all hooks up to some funky software on the computer. He loves it. Personally I prefer to look out of the window.
The warm sunshine made our first Portuguese Christmas a bit peculiar on occasion - mince pies, sausage rolls and mulled wine on the patio whilst swatting mozzies was different. And our annual Boxing Day trek - last year an inappropriately under-dressed hike, blinded by the snow in the freezing Black Mountains - was this year an inappropriately over-dressed swelter, blinded by the sun reflecting off Òbidos lagoon.
But everything else was comfortingly similar and we had a lovely Christmas, thanks very much for asking. The boyfriends went back to the UK shortly before Xmas, so there were just four of us. We had a real tree (albeit a pine from the garden, rather than a Norway Spruce), a roaring fire, consumed waaay too much of everything, and thanks to some satellite jiggery-pokery we even have British telly. Not that we watched much of it because it was all crap. The only thing we didn't have were parsnips, which don't really exist in Portugal. But I intend to remedy that situation before next year.
On New Years Eve we got drunk and played 'Cards Against Humanity' (or 'Carbs Against Feminism' as my peculiar eldest daughter's subconscious has renamed it). I highly recommend it if you want to literally LOL, ROFL, and PMSL. My laughing muscles ached for days afterwards and I got cramp in my pelvic floor, with the effort of it all. Afterwards R and I stayed up until 3-ish, dancing to Queen, with a brief interlude at midnight when we watched fireworks exploding over Òbidos and Caldas in the distance below us, whilst The Youngs went out at 11pm to actually witness the fireworks close up. They crawled back in at 11am the next morning looking like they'd definitely had a good time but there were a number of inconsistencies in their stories about what they'd been up to. *raises eyebrow*
My portuguese is progressing slowly. I need more practice speaking it but people take one look at me and talk in English before I've even opened my mouth. I reply in Portuguese and they reply in English. I ask if we can speak Portuguese and they smile indulgently, say something in machine gun Portuguese, I stare at them blankly and we're back to square one. Although I'm quite good at chatting about the weather now. R isn't great with languages so he signed up for an intensive 40 hour course with a proper portuguese teacher, in order to grasp the basics. He thinks it's helped a lot, although I'm unconvinced.
Me: Oh look there's a sign for a charcutaria down there.
Rich (looking puzzled): Why do you need to get your feet done?
I'm now looking for a chiropodist so I can send him in for some sausages. Unfortunately the portuguese word for 'chiropodist' is 'pedicure', I think. Might still get away with it if I ask him to get 'cured' sausages. *winks*
He's progressing with his golf though, as well he might, given the amount of time he spends on the course (and probably necking crafty pints in the clubhouse). I have no objections btw - it gives me more time to garden in peace without having to dodge haphazardly falling trees. Meanwhile Daughter #2 has gone on a jolly back to the UK, and Daughter #1 has buggered off to India. It's amazing the lengths some people will go to to escape Mummadoc's January Regime. Bloody defectors.
For those who are interested I've started writing a mostly-gardening blog. It's here:
http://blogs.angloinfo.com/moving-on-life-in-the-slow-lane/2015/01/12/new-year-new-country-new-life/
I dislike the term 'Dry January'. It brings to mind nappies and pull-ups and the smell of urine-sodden sheets. Some people call it a Dryathlon and request sponsorship for not drinking alcohol for 31 days. What? I'm a bit bewildered by that. Isn't the point of sponsorship to do something challenging? And by that I mean not something that 75% of the worlds population do as part of just existing. What next - sponsorship for remembering to clean your teeth every day for a month? Or changing your pants? Or - (Hah! Don't be ludicrous.) - not bothering to shave for, like, the whole of November? Oh.
Besides, if someone's sufficiently impressed by you quitting booze for a month that they're prepared to cough up good money then they must be either very worried about your drinking, or very worried about their own. You should probably take the sponsorship money along to Alcoholics Anonymous. In person.
Anyway, on the International Scale of Debauchery, I elect to recalibrate to zero every January, knowing that I'm likely to gradually slink back up to 10 over the next twelve months. Boring, definitely, but it's why I'm not a fat alcoholic. Shut up.
Weather-wise our first winter in Portugal has been uncommonly fine - dry and sunny since early December, until a few days ago, when all the pent up rain fell out of the sky at the same time. The weather here is generally quite changeable, on an hourly basis, which excites R a great deal. He fancies himself as a bit of a weather buff and the forecast has always been his favourite telly program. For Christmas this year I bought him a super-duper weather station. It has a data collecting gadget that he's attached to a pole in the garden, and an indoor digital monitor and information display and it all hooks up to some funky software on the computer. He loves it. Personally I prefer to look out of the window.
The warm sunshine made our first Portuguese Christmas a bit peculiar on occasion - mince pies, sausage rolls and mulled wine on the patio whilst swatting mozzies was different. And our annual Boxing Day trek - last year an inappropriately under-dressed hike, blinded by the snow in the freezing Black Mountains - was this year an inappropriately over-dressed swelter, blinded by the sun reflecting off Òbidos lagoon.
But everything else was comfortingly similar and we had a lovely Christmas, thanks very much for asking. The boyfriends went back to the UK shortly before Xmas, so there were just four of us. We had a real tree (albeit a pine from the garden, rather than a Norway Spruce), a roaring fire, consumed waaay too much of everything, and thanks to some satellite jiggery-pokery we even have British telly. Not that we watched much of it because it was all crap. The only thing we didn't have were parsnips, which don't really exist in Portugal. But I intend to remedy that situation before next year.
On New Years Eve we got drunk and played 'Cards Against Humanity' (or 'Carbs Against Feminism' as my peculiar eldest daughter's subconscious has renamed it). I highly recommend it if you want to literally LOL, ROFL, and PMSL. My laughing muscles ached for days afterwards and I got cramp in my pelvic floor, with the effort of it all. Afterwards R and I stayed up until 3-ish, dancing to Queen, with a brief interlude at midnight when we watched fireworks exploding over Òbidos and Caldas in the distance below us, whilst The Youngs went out at 11pm to actually witness the fireworks close up. They crawled back in at 11am the next morning looking like they'd definitely had a good time but there were a number of inconsistencies in their stories about what they'd been up to. *raises eyebrow*
My portuguese is progressing slowly. I need more practice speaking it but people take one look at me and talk in English before I've even opened my mouth. I reply in Portuguese and they reply in English. I ask if we can speak Portuguese and they smile indulgently, say something in machine gun Portuguese, I stare at them blankly and we're back to square one. Although I'm quite good at chatting about the weather now. R isn't great with languages so he signed up for an intensive 40 hour course with a proper portuguese teacher, in order to grasp the basics. He thinks it's helped a lot, although I'm unconvinced.
Me: Oh look there's a sign for a charcutaria down there.
Rich (looking puzzled): Why do you need to get your feet done?
I'm now looking for a chiropodist so I can send him in for some sausages. Unfortunately the portuguese word for 'chiropodist' is 'pedicure', I think. Might still get away with it if I ask him to get 'cured' sausages. *winks*
He's progressing with his golf though, as well he might, given the amount of time he spends on the course (and probably necking crafty pints in the clubhouse). I have no objections btw - it gives me more time to garden in peace without having to dodge haphazardly falling trees. Meanwhile Daughter #2 has gone on a jolly back to the UK, and Daughter #1 has buggered off to India. It's amazing the lengths some people will go to to escape Mummadoc's January Regime. Bloody defectors.
For those who are interested I've started writing a mostly-gardening blog. It's here:
http://blogs.angloinfo.com/moving-on-life-in-the-slow-lane/2015/01/12/new-year-new-country-new-life/
