Tag Archives: Christmas

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My Life Got Flipped, Turned Upside Down

  By
Hester & Harriet
Hilary Spiers
Allen & Unwin, RRP $29.99
October 2015

9781925266412I am quite sure I have previously expounded on my early-onset curmudgeoness, which began some time around the onset of puberty. Some may have called it simply “being a teenager”, and certainly many similar behaviours were involved. However, it also involved a whole lot of tutting at rude people, finding fellow teenagers to be irritating, and enjoying Brussels sprouts. In other words I have always been old.

Not that Hester and Harriet are old. Do not, under any circumstances, let them overhear you saying that. They are at most late middle-aged, okay. Got that? Continue reading

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Reassessment

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CARVING WOODEN SANTAS, ELVES & GNOMESgnomes

Oar, Ross (Woodcarving Illustrated Books; Fox Chapel Publishing, September 2008, ISBN 9781565233836)

Several Christmases ago, I caught Karen home from work watching a home improvement programme that showed you how to build a procession of plywood reindeer for your lawn. You sawed the antlers and the reindeer out as separate pieces and then nailed the former on to the latter.

Imagine yourself sawing out plywood reindeer in your garage on a Sunday afternoon. What a sense of purposelessness must assail you. You had dreams once. How did it come to this?

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Goats

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THE BACKYARD GOAT: AN INTRODUCTORY GUIDE TO KEEPING AND ENJOYING PET GOATS, FROM
FEEDING AND HOUSING TO MAKING YOUR OWN CHEESEgoatbook

Weaver, Sue (Storey Publishing, LLC, 2011, ISBN 978-1603427906)

Years ago, in the intolerable heat of late December, I found myself stuck in the checkout queue at Coles. Somebody had told the man in front of me that if he drove in from Rosebud, Coles would sell him a whole goat. The preposterousness of the incident gave the employees some much needed respite from the toil of the Christmas season, so in spite of the rush, four of them ministered to him. It made tough going for the caprinophage. However plausible his accusations, four employees stood on hand to deny them.

“But I confirmed it,” he said. Continue reading

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