Ice

Faye with their pre-birthday cake of ice cream, biscuits and chocolate after a dinner of spag bol and before we managed to score 10 on the GSQ.
A1 is rereading Joe Country by Mick Herron.
After 17 days, A2 has finally reached the end of ICE, an alternate history set in the 1920s, in which the Tunguska impact delivered new materials to the world, bringing new elements and glaciers at absolute zero, setting in motion cryotechnologies and black physics and freezing history so the Russian revolution and World War 1 never happened. Reading it was akin to reading War and Peace as a teenager; an unlikeable protagonist, a mix of historical and fictional figures, long philosophical, theological and mathematical disquisitions and an enormous cast of characters. Like W&P it was a struggle to read but the feeling of genius was strong. A2 is now going to relax with The Burning Grounds by Abir Mukherjee.

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Fireworks in the far distance, played backwards as 2025 disappears into history.
Our weather station malfunctioned at various points in the year, with the base unit failing in June and the business end packing in in December; consequently none of the statistics are reliable. However the solar panels soldiered bravely on and served up 1,530.932kWh, making 2025 our second best year ever.
A1 is rereading Bad Actors by Mick Herron.

Another Family Meal

The last family gathering of this quarter-century at which we ate chicken bacon broccoli and a tiny banana blueberry white chocolate cake and scored 12 on the last quiz of the year for a fairly neat average of 10.225, a step down from last year’s 10.2268518518519, and another step down from 2023’s 10.2756346153846. Onwards and upwards everyone!
Prompted by watching series 5 of Slow Horses, A1 is rereading London Rules by Mick Herron (on which it’s based), to remind himself how much better the books are.

Boxing Day Dinner

Our family dinner. Same as yesterday but with added peas and a successfully flambé Christmas pudding.

There were many more presents to unwrap and a quiz to do at which we scored 11.5 against all odds.

And here’s Dave being very childish with one of his presents, and causing much amusement:

The Girl (and Boy) with All the Gifts

We each gave each other copies of The Burning Grounds and The Halcyon Years but A2 got 2 unduplicated books. Other goodies: hairy shoes, fluffy socks, a cushion cover, salt and pepper grinders, a yoyo, Shiwa coffee, a turntable and a Raspberry Pi. Lucky us.
We had succulent tender roast pork, roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, pigs in blankets, stuffing balls, carrots, sprouts, spring greens and gravy for dinner. Tomorrow we will eat it all again.
We are watching Slow Horses. A1 is reading The Regulators by Stephen King. A2 is reading ICE by Jacek Dukaj. Thank you A1.

Oh Christmas Tree


The Yorkshire puddings, pigs in blankets and stuffing balls are ready and the Christmas presents are all wrapped up and awaiting the grand opening. Tomorrow we feast and the next day we feast again.
A1 is reading Rosy and John* by Pierre Lemaitre. A2 is rereading On the Yankee Station by William Boyd; short stories mostly about young men lusting after random women and generally failing to score.

In the Darkness Shineth

Our Christmas tree is up at last and festooned with coloured lights instead of the normal plain ones.
A1 is reading What the Dark Whispers* by MJ Lee. If I was a publisher’s reader and this was a first novel, I might say “Shows some promise, but needs work. Reject with encouragement.” But MJL has published 30 crime novels in the last ten years and really should have sorted out his plotting. (Example: An apparent suicide pays for self-immolation petrol with his own credit card, and the baffled cops are unable to identify him.) And the book badly needs a proofreader.
A2, inspired by an article by Aditya Chakrabortty, is rereading Kingdom Come by JG Ballard. In an imaginary future, suburban blokes string St George’s flags from lamp-posts, trash Asian shops and try to burn down asylum hostels. Couldn’t happen here.

Chicken Dinner

For our family meal tonight we had tomato chicken, baked potatoes and creamy cheesy leeks, followed by A1’s magnificent marble cake with cream, custard and chocolate sauce, and generously scored ourselves 9.5 on the GSQ.
A2 is reading We Solve Murders by Richard Osman,in which a different bunch of (mostly) agreeable (mostly) old buffers turn their backs on village life to form an international crime-fighting syndicate. Thanks Gemma’s!

Roasted

Roast beef, Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, sprouts, broccoli, stuffing balls, gravy … but A1 forgot to serve the carrots. But never mind, Gez scoffed the lot anyway. Plus A2’s delicious afters of Squidgy Chocolate Pear Pudding and cream, after which we scored 13 on the GSQ with Bob as quizmaster.
A1 is rereading The Stand by Stephen King. A2 is reading Desolation Road by Ian McDonald.

Spag Bol

Another family lunch of leftover pasta and trifle at which we scored 10 on the GSQ in the absence of Dave who was ill.
November was cooler and cloudier than average but was our rainiest month this year and our fifth wettest of all time: 145.2mm.
A2 is reading Hearts, Hands and Voices by Ian McDonald, a magical science-fictional take on 20th-century Irish history.