The 2006 Geminids

This morning was a morning to savour shooting stars, in particular, a meteor shower comprising a collection of space rocks called the Geminids

Image © George Varros

The image shows the view as it may have looked, somewhere above the grey blanket rain-cloud that's wrapped itself around Bunnyhome, here in the North-East Atlantic. Under this dark, featureless murk I can only dream about the brightest meteor shower of 2006. Maybe the sky will be clear when these space rocks visit us again at the end of 2007?

I was able to simulate the shooting star effect, by pointing a torch directly upwards into the rain, resulting in a damp display of shooting water droplets; very pretty but quite annoying when they land in your eye. This whole shooting stars, standing out in the rain thing, was actually part of a self-deluding conspiracy to avoid thinking about, the thing I've been trying to avoid thinking about.

The thing I've been trying to avoid thinking about being Christmas day.

This Christmas I had been hoping for a quiet unassuming break, free of greetings cards, family visits and habitual gift swapping. This year more than any other I have a whole queue of internal debates and troublesome thoughts to ponder.

Unfortunately when I saw Leaf about three weeks ago, she gave me an invite to dinner on Christmas day with "two or three" of her friends. Foolishly I didn't flush out the truth while I had a chance to do something about it. I saw her again [last week] and discovered that "two or three" actually means twenty six members of her family. She's invited them for a full seasonal dinner and she needs me to cook. Leaf isn't a kitchen person, you see.

Almost the same thing happened last year, though on a smaller scale. Leaf had invited me over for Christmas dinner with her family. What followed was a frenzied evening that saw me cooking turkey with all the associated trimmings for eleven people, and fish pie with brussel sprouts for yours truly, the sole non-meat eater.

So yes, I should know better. Well at least I have a blog now which wasn't the case in 2005.
note to self: remember to book a holiday abroad - somewhere with clear skies - for Christmas 2007!!

Anyway, I'm trying to avoid thinking about Christmas day.

This evening something quite odd happened. I was randomly surfing - skimming blogs from China, Madagascar and Saudi Arabia, reading some quite funny stories, when a little bubble of happiness floated in from somewhere and latched on to me. I forgot completely about Christmas day and started smiling for no apparent reason, a quite unexpected momentary high. Unfortunately the moment's left now, so I'm back to my usual dreariness.

And ... there's a small fly; an extremely annoying small fly. He's been around here for two days. Each time I spot him, manoeuvring somewhere in my peripheral vision, he manages to disappear. I'm normally quite a peace loving person when it comes to house guests, but this particular pesky fly has an appointment with his afterlife and I intend to make sure he keeps it.

Listening to: Mozart's Piano Sonata in C Minor, interspersed with an intermittent but quite annoying buzzing noise