Be Excellent To Each Other

Work is done!

Drink is doing!

Merry Christmas, Beex! May you all be forever a drain on my resources!

Fucking ANNOUNCE GO!

I'M THE ADMIN UP IN THIS HOLE

Apparently that means none can see it.

Merry non-denominative holidays!

I saw it. You proclaimed good, Admin guy.

Bish!

I spent two hours this evening wrapping presents. I now feel so festive I could slaughter some first borns.

Looking forward to working until 4pm Xmas Eve, driving to Southampton, sitting down for one day and driving back Boxing Day to go back to work on Friday

Happy with that atm

Samsies. Except for Southampton.

Moi aussis, and working extra shifts today and tomorrow. Only getting Christmas Day and NYD off because of company bastard shift rotas. On the plus side it's time-and-a-half today and double-time tomoz. SHOW ME THE MONEY!

1st day off of 12 is going well.
Star Wars last night (7/10) and an evening in front of the tv tonight knowing I have all the Christmas food bought.

Hope you all have a good Christmas whatever your plans are.

I'm working up to lunchtime Christmas Eve, working from home 27th then off till 2nd Jan.

Pretty much organised, just want some more Pringles to fill up the wine rack.

My Christmas holiday started with making my mum cry then driving to Essex. Today I'm getting out of Essex at least.

Every year it manages to be worse. How is it so hard to sit around for a week sleeping, drinking, watching die hard and smoking turkey?

Die to the last couple of weeks being absolutely awful for us I’m a fortnight behind where I want to be in terms of organisation and getting stuff done, but that’s OK. Father Christmas has a playhouse safely stored in the garage, the abusive upstairs neighbour moved out today, and most importantly Darwin is feeling much better, so the rest doesn’t matter.

Great news on your neighbour - bad neighbours can be such a constanrt source of stress and worry. Hopefully them moving out will make everything else a bit better.

Well, good news on the other stuff too, but I've never had a play house in the kitchen, or a unwell son named Darwin, so I can't really relate to them. I HAVE had a shitty upstairs neighbour, and the sense of relief when they went was remarkable.

He’s a horrid, horrid man. I think his son (about 13) has started smoking weed, too. We’ve found about 6 lighters, pouches of tobacco, broken cigarettes covered in blood (?!) and more packs of cigarette papers than we can count hidden in the electricity access cupboard and in Darwin’s caterpillar seesaw. We keep throwing it all away, but he keeps hiding it in the EXACT SAME PLACES.

But really, it’s the father that’s the problem. He shouts abuse from 7am to midnight. He’s a terrible, terrible person.

Christmas plans seem to be changing drastically as my car won’t start and a jumpstart hasn’t fixed it.

I’m watching Anna And The Apocalypse. A Christmas musical with zombies that’s every bit as good as it sounds.

This was better than it had any right to be.

well, that’s deeply ducking tedious for you. Sorry to hear that.
In other news, my new lady friend is hosting her family this year and her 12 month old Smeg gas oven has packed up this morning....

Urgh! Sorry to hear this. I’ve got a colleague who is handy with cars coming to have a look after he finishes his round today, but I suspect it’s the starter motor, so will be a non-starter (lol).

Trains are £100 each and even hiring a small car like a Fiat 500 is £150.

Going to have to make a last-minute dash to Sainsbury's after work as we have literally nothing in.

Sorry to hear that, Myp. That’s really crap. I hope it might be something simple and quick and inexpensive to fix.

Our oven packed in last year on Christmas Day. That’s the second time my oven has gone on Christmas Day. I remember my ma’s going one year, too, and the two of us planning what we could cook on the stove top (boiled then fried potatoes, slices/steaks of turkey breast fried off in garlic butter, sautéed sprouts with bacon... stuffing made into sausages and heated in a pan. It took ages, but was kind of funny for how much we achieved on a hob.

My mother’s oven went on Christmas morning once, as well. We managed to fix that. The annoying thing is that if it was an electric oven, I could probably fix it easily enough and have done in the past. Gas ovens are something I know next to nothing about and I suspect even getting the part would be a pain today.

It’s like the ovens KNOW. It’s not even the strain of cooking what is often the biggest meal of the year, as usually they simply don’t turn on on Christmas morning.

Hope it's something simple with your car, Myps.

My dad offered to come and pick us up today and bring us back Boxing Day. But that’s nearly 16 hours of driving in 48 hours so I declined — he’s nearly 70! :’(

Any convenient friends heading south?

Could you borrow a car?

Buy a junker for £100?

If it's the starter motor can't you bump start it?

Have you tried tapping the starter motor?

.

Where's your guest?

I’ve not done that with a starter motor since my first car!

Not really feasible on my driveway that leads onto a dual carriageway.

Where you going to? If it’s somewhere in the Midlands I could help but not if it’s Devon or some daft shit.

A few years ago our first flat screen TV died exactly on the 12th "Bong" of Big Ben on New Year's Eve. Screen just went black. We thought it was part of the broadcast until we tried swapping channels and then realised it had died. Now THAT'S timing.

Mrs W has texted with good and bad news. The good is that after aaaaaages of Ace catalogue people saying we weren't eligible for a PPI refund, they've now mailed to say we're in line for about a grand. The bad news is that our IoT tumble dryer isn't heating up (not that I've enabled its IoT features, of course) but it's only 11 months old so under warranty, so it's not all bad, if rather inconvenient. To be honest, we've never really liked it, it's too clever for its own good.

Anyroadup, "shit birds" ?????? Is that even a thing?

Stylistically I would have left out the space, but yes.

Southampton. Thanks though.

Well, it's in Wiktionary, so I bow to your knowledge.

I’ll take you to Northampton, final offer.

Home of a test lift shaft, and a cobbling industry, if memory serves

Starter motors haven't changed much. Whack it with a spanner in case the solenoid is stuck.

Google keyboard suggested I change "spanner" to "wrench". Fuck off, America!

Also home of my in laws who are having a remarkably quiet and undercatered Christmas, for some reason.

Also home to the funniest and most attractive beexer.

I can’t see you. Where are you hiding, snuggles? Xx

I've just realised that there's been no Beex secret Santa this year... Unless there was one and you didn't tell me about it?

Giphy "no homers club":
https://media1.giphy.com/media/AuiuwJou8hUic/giphy-loop.mp4

Honestly giphy... What more do I have to give you?!?!?

We all got better gify links for our secret santa gifts

Giphy "no homers":
https://media0.giphy.com/media/d6kA61XEyBNBe/giphy-loop.mp4