Christmas time (damn those bell ends)

As befits the holiday season I returned to native shores to celebrate Christmas with the family. After enduring a particularly gruelling December, overdosing on festive spirit, the relative quiet of rural Värmland was just what the good doctor ordered. Global warming conspired to create a distinctly green Christmas but a couple of days ago a band of snow swept the southern parts of the country to create a -10C post-Christmas winter wonderland. Pretty, atmospheric and proper Christmassy.

My travelling jinx obviously had to continue; the journey to Scandinavia didn't quite go to plan. The entertainment for the journey was meant to consist of rewatching episodes 1-4 of Car Share, possibly the best commuter comedy ever. Instead my airwaves were completely gazumped by a fellow passenger with questionable social skills and an astonishing lack of self awareness. Word: douchebag. Before I had the chance to fasten my seatbelt she opened the floodgates to an endless stream of verbal diarrhoea of the stinkiest, unsolid kind. A big fat 7 in the Bristol stool chart. Praise the Lord we weren't embarking on a long haul.

Turned out we were both Swedes travelling back for the holidays but there the similarities end. Over the course of the WHOLE flight she kept rambling on about herself and her first world plight. My polite disinterest in her 'conversation' went unnoticed, or maybe it fuelled the fire. 

She's a dentist who's lived in London for a few years, having emigrated to do a masters in at UCL. The professors there weren't very helpful so she also had support from her professor at Sahlgrenska with whom she had a much more productive relationship. She's wanting to meet up with him over Christmas as she hasn't seen him for 4 years. She's in two minds over a suitable present. He's 85 years old so she's thinking to take him out for dinner at a fancy restaurant because people of that age already have everything they want, don't they? He drinks wine though, he told her once. She doesn't drink much at the moment herself, she had to put her social life on hold during her studies which were very demanding. She does go for brunch with her neighbours on a Saturday, after playing tennis with the male part of the coupling. He's a retired accountant and helps her with her books. It's really important to keep fit. It's also really important to eat well - home cooking with fresh ingredients. She loves fish. She's from Gothenburg so grew up round fish. Her family still lives in Gothenburg. They haven't been to visit yet, her studies were very demanding so she couldn't afford to take time off to show her parents round London. Or to socialise. She knows people in the UK though, she has friends in Plymouth, Nottingham and York. Travelling in the UK is quite expensive. Her friend in York is also a Swedish dentist, she's got a practice in Scarborough. Unlike her York friend she's not sure if she wants to stay in the UK long term. Having initially rented a 2 bed flat in Chelsea for 400 quid a month from a dental patient's ex-wife who was relocating to Australia and wanted a respectable tenant, she recently bought a flat overlooking Hampstead Heath. The flat is really lovely so she's reluctant to let it out and she doesn't want to sell it. She's tempted to continue with her studies though and she could do that in either England or Sweden. It'd be free to study back home and she hasn't got that much money at the moment, having completed her demanding masters and bought the Hampstead flat, so Swedish studies are tempting. She needs to have a chat with her old professor to get his input as to where to study. He's really well known in the world of international dentistry. He used to write articles for the British Dental Journal but he's retired now. His English is excellent. He helped her with her thesis as his English is better than hers. Her English is good enough though and she's found a job in a private clinic. She takes a packed lunch as her busy schedule makes it difficult to nip out to get lunch, plus she's still getting back to healthy finances after her very demanding studies and Hampstead flat purchase. She's hoping to save up a bit of cash to go on holiday next year with her friend. She hasn't been on holiday since starting her demanding masters. Her dad has just come back from a trip to Thailand, Vietnam and Burma, and she's quite keen on Thailand. It's all about the money though, she also likes shopping. Particularly at one specific shop in Gothenburg, she bought a pair of black boots there. She wore them to travel in. 

That's a pretty accurate summary of her 90 minute monologue, my infrequent contribution amounted to highlighting that not everyone is in the position to buy a flat in a sought after area in London and declining the invitation to brainstorm suitable Christmas presents for the professor. Oh, and repeatedly saying that I'm no longer a student. Once arrived I cunningly tried to shake her off at the luggage belt but the little minx managed to retrieve her suitcase in time to hop on the same shuttle bus. Another 30 mins of earache. Unlucky for some.

The bell end didn't ruin Christmas though and for the rest of the holidays I enjoyed the more dulcit tones of Christmas songs old and new. I also revisited a pile of my old vinyl albums. My dad has bought a massive floor standing contemporary jukebox with snazzy lights and a fully functioning record player. That's it there spinning The (newly Spotified) Beatles' red album.

A surprising realisation about my collection of vinyl was the overall standard. Never one for pretending that my choice in music is 'cool' or 'hip', I'm not ashamed to say that I own Milli Vanilli's Girl You Know It's True (gatefold) album. There are nevertheless some absolute classics right there - Like A Prayer, Raw Like Sushi, Thriller, Actually. And James Bond's Greatest Hits.

Back in the day, most of my albums, vinyl then CD, were purchased in Karlstad. The big city for us small town folk. My mum worked extra in a clothes shop there in the late 80s, just as my record buying was gathering momentum. We used to to along on a regular basis, perusing the record shops whilst she worked. Amongst other things I bought Green by R.E.M. on US import CD which came in those odd rectangular paper outer sleeves, and a box set of the entire Aerosmith back catalogue just for Dream On. Hit and miss.

Despite now living in an actual big city, I still do an annual Christmas sales pilgrimage to Karlstad. Clothes not records the stock in trade nowadays. I came across these on Boxing Day.

A shirt from Dressmann, 150 SEK/£11.50, down from 400 SEK. Nice pattern. A purple jumper from H&M, half price at 150 SEK. Excellent colour.

So after a rather ear splitting start, Christmas turned out alright in the end. And the return journey was bell free and Peter Kay full. 'Ave it!

Burning the Christmas candle at both ends

The festive season is upon us, in case anyone needed a reminder. Tis the season to be jolly, joy to the world, hark the herald, mistletoe and wine. The Christmas commerce has seemingly not fully recovered from the financial crisis judging by the splurge of offers from well known high street brands that drop in my inbox with incessant frequency. These are trying times for a spendaholic. The 30%, 50%, 70% discounts are presumably designed for encouraging customers to spend their Christmas budget on gifts for loved ones and not themselves. Easier said than done. It is with grave difficulty then that this week I've resisted buying a pair of brogues from River Island for £25, down from £60. I could buy a Christmas present for that money. Then again I could do with a pair of brown leather brogues, casual, not too dressy. But I haven't done my Christmas shopping yet. Greed or generosity, it's an existential conundrum. Maybe my conscience will be less weighty if every other thing I buy is a present...

Christmas time also means that it's now been a year since I started blogging. The seed of which was sown just over a year ago in my friend Jeanette's front room in Harringay, north London. The aim was to chronicle my spending for the year ahead and see if keeping a running tally of my material outgoings would influence my spending behaviour. Safe to say that the answer to that one is distinctly unanimous and unambiguous. It's not changed one iota. My commitment to the cause hasn't waned. My bank balance isn't looking healthier. My wardrobe hasn't gone more capsule, not that there was any risk of that happening. Plenty of other things have changed over the year however, in particular relocating to the capital with its fervent lure of goods and services to purchase. It's like being a kid in one ginormous sweetshop filled with all the salt liquorices, Refreshers and pick & mixes ever produced.

As it's my first, and possibly only, Christmas as a Londoner I've launched a full scale Christmas party assault. This week alone I've been out on two work Christmas dos, one work leaving do and a cheesetastic Christmas dinner party with friends. I'm totally burning the Christmas candle out of every orifice. Knackered already and I've got another couple of Christmas dos and a pre-Christmas tipple oop north coming up next week. Think I need a holiday from life. The past week or so has very aptly summed up the cornerstones of my blog too - disaster, thriftiness and frivolity.

Disaster. Friday's leaving do was the third night tiles on the trot and I rather dramatically ran out of steam, possibly aided by the lack of sustenance to counter the booze. Two mince pies didn't quite do the trick. I eventually made it to Blackfriars to head home, the take away next to Stepney Green station firmly in my mind, but proceeded to pass out on the District line. When I came to it I found myself in Upney. Who even knew there was a place called Upney anyway?! Well I do now. It's 9 stations further east than I needed to go. Obviously I'd missed the last tube back west so had to Uber my ass home. And I couldn't be bothered stopping off at the take away either so ended up scoffing a whole bag of sweets just to get some 'nutrition'. Right disaster.

Thrifty. In the mood for donning some new outfits for the impending Christmas dos, I revisited my crafty past and turned out a couple of home styled creations with the help of Primark and eBay.

White shirt from Primark for a fiver with a stitched on frog motif pocket. I bought the fabric ages ago with the intention of making a baby growth for a friend's child but never got round to it, possibly because my lack of precise pattern cutting and sewing skills would combine to make the finished product look shit. At least I've managed to find some use for it now though.

White t shirt from Primark for £2.50 and felt rectangles for £1.99 from eBay. A bit of free hand cutting and wonder web, et voila! Two outfits for less than a tenner, clearly not exquisitely couture but good fun nevertheless. Just don't look too closely.

I also made good use of Tesco's Clubcard Boost to obtain these burgundy brogues. Already in the sale at £10 down from £20, I used a £5 voucher and boosted it to double the value so in effect the brogues didn't cost me anything. The best price there is.

Frivolous. Having already purchased two new winter coats the other month to complement the existing wardrobe options, one would assume that there's little need for extending the collection. Well... The clever marketing gurus at Topman know which buttons to press, and so it was that I fell prey to the 50% off coats and jackets temptation.

£45 it set me back which is frankly not a lot of money, and it looks pretty good, and I can now wear a different winter coat every day of the week, which is clearly a priority in life. 

So it would appear that the 'another year older, another year wiser' schtick doesn't quite stick. This time next year I'm bound to be looking back at another 12 months worth of obsessive compulsive purchasing and life mishaps. And that's definitely worth drinking to.