28 December 2012

Christmas 2012

My first week back in Invecargill was sort of hectic. First of all, it's actually a proper summer here and quite hot, which was a bit of shock to the system after coming from icy cold wind and rain in Galway. I had Christmas shopping to do, gifts to make and food to cook, plus unpacking and tidying up the spare room that I have claimed as my own, and helping mum to unpack and tidy up her new place. In fact, I'm already getting sick of being around my family so before long I'm going to head out to Colac Bay and begin to write my thesis, all reclusive and on my own, with a beach view:



So Christmas itself was exhausting. It all started on Christmas eve when I was sitting on the floor wrapping presents and I saw something move out of the corner of my eye - it was a spider, running across the carpet. Only a medium sized spider, but I just did not have the energy to deal with it properly, so I tried to encourage the cat to eat it. The spider stopped moving as soon as it saw my shadow so at least it didn't go hide somewhere, but the useless cat would not get it for me. And I know that she does kill spiders sometimes because I found a dead one on my bedroom floor one morning, which was surely a gift from her because it hadn't been there the night before. So with the cat being no help at all I grabbed a book and squashed the poor thing, only it didn't want to die so it took several whacks. Just as I was about to turn back to my present wrapping I noticed lots of little insects crawling over the floor and my first thought was 'ew, the kitchen is being invaded by ants'. But then I looked closer and saw that the tiny crawling things were actually tons of baby spiders! The one that I killed must have had a sack of babies and I burst it open. That was the last straw and I had to be completely cruel and vacuum them all up. Poor spiders. They should not come into my house, then I wouldn't have to do that.

With my spider fiasco over, I still had presents to wrap and food to prepare. Mostly it was ordinary food but the frozen banoffee cheesecake was my prize piece for this year and I think from now on I will always make a banoffee cheesecake over a normal banoffee pie. Especially seeing as Christmas was actually a proper hot day. It was awfully hot even before lunch when I had to go pick up various family members, and it only got hotter. Too hot to eat almost. Too hot to sit in the sunshine. Ended up retreating into the house (which was no cooler, my sister's house is practically a sauna) and watching rather un-christmassy movies. That was my Christmas practically over - I got pearl bracelets from Dad from Thailand and a Minnie Mouse watch, and my brother actually came through with a really good gift of frosting equipment so I can go straight back to cupcake making. I spent the evening with friends, who have a brand new puppy that is so cute (and I so want one), but it is very nippy and has sharp little teeth.

Now New Years is nearly upon us and the perfect weather is finally supposed to break, the forecast is solid rain for the next few days. It's a bit of a bummer, but then, it's been sort of strange to have no rain and it will still not be very cold. It will give my sunburn time to fade at least. A bonfire by the beach would have been fun for New Years, but it's really just another day so I don't really mind being kept inside by the rain, to celebrate quietly with friends. The good weather should come back so there will be plenty of time for that.

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