draliman on life

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

Would you consider 2024 to have been a good year?
It was okay I suppose. I spent up until October doing a major website rewrite at work with almost all annual leave cancelled, so I had weeks off during the last 3 months of the year so that was nice.

What has been the highlight of 2024 for you?
I don’t recall any highlights.

Did you keep any New Year resolutions if you made any in January?
I don’t make New Year resolutions. If I make them I’d break them and then I’d spend the year feeling guilty about it.

Are you looking forward to 2025?
No more than any other year. It’ll be another year like any other, I’m sure.

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

What is the best or worst gift you have ever received?
I always remember my first computer, which I got for my birthday in 1982. It was a Sinclair ZX81.

What is the funniest gift you’ve ever given or received?
I have no idea. I don’t recall ever getting or giving funny gifts.

Do you purchase a gift specifically with a recipient in mind or buy something you like and hope they do?
I always buy for the recipient. To be honest I usually ask what they’d like. Then I get that plus another something small so there’s still a bit of a surprise.

Have you ever recycled/ passed on an unwanted or unsuitable gift?
Not that I remember. I wouldn’t really re-gift. That can come back to bite you on the ass, especially if you forgot who gave it to you and you give it back to them the next year.

Here is my post for Share My World, hosted by Di.

Is it your birthday today (or a friend, family member, anyone you know?)
Nope.

What’s the worst part about the festive / holiday season for you?
All the organisation and fear that I’ve forgotten something.

Do your Decembers have a hot, cold, or moderate climate?
I took a leaf out of Dawn’s book and Googled this as Google has that AI section at the top now. It says 11C during the day and 7C at night.

Would you like to hibernate when it’s cold?
No, that’s a lot of life I’d be sleeping away.

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

Do you prefer a slice of cake from a larger one or an individual item like a bun, scone or Danish pastry?
I’m good either way. Bring it on.

Do you like sugary items such as doughnuts, gateau with cream, cupcakes or fruit cake?
I’ll have all of that except the fruit cake.

Can you bake a cake?
I’ve only ever tried the one type of cake, but I guess that’s a yes. I went hunting through my photos and found a picture.

Care to share a favourite cake recipe?
Just the one for the cake above, a standard dead easy sponge – self-raising flour, eggs, caster sugar, baking powder, mix and cook.

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

What is your favourite Christmas (or traditional) memory?
Gran always visited from Scotland, and we used to have lots of fun going around the place. We also used to go for a lovely walk on Christmas Eve, all together.

Do you think merchandise is sold too early for these celebrations?
Yep. The only reason there’s no Easter Eggs in the shops yet is because they’ve been full of Christmas stuff since October.

Do you decorate your house with ribbons, streamers, tinsel etc?
Not very much, a couple of strips of tinsel and some flashing coloured lights.

What is your least favourite Christmas song?
I was struggling to decide which one is the absolute worst, but Dawn reminded me that it’s “Last F*cking Christmas” by Wham.

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

Do you like snow?
I do, in theory. I like walking out in it. I hate it if I’m out somewhere, it starts to snow and I have to drive home. That’s frightening.

However we never had much snow here and even less in recent years.

Did you build a snowman as a child and dress it with coal eyes, a carrot nose etc?
I think we built rather half-hearted snowmen but never got as far as dressing them up. They were pretty poor anyway, given the amount of snow we had to work with.

Did you have snowball fights?
Yep 🙂

Did you have a sleigh?
I had neither sleigh nor sled, due to the afore-mentioned lack of snow. Snow which actually settles for more than 10 minutes once every 5 years doesn’t make it worthwhile.

I remember once we borrowed food trays from Mum and slid down a steep road on them. That’s as far as we got, sled-wise.

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

What brings you the most comfort: food, friends, a good movie, pets, a walk on the beach/in the park, something else?
Yeah, I’ll have all that lot please. And chuck in “something else” too thanks, why not.

Most of us love our food. Is there something you like but know you shouldn’t have it?
All the tasty stuff I eat.

It’s a simple rule of thumb – if it tastes great, you shouldn’t be eating it. If it tastes like a mouldy old sock, it’s doing you the world of good.

Do you prefer a garden of flowers or growing vegetables, or do you not have a garden?
A garden of flowers, I mainly have little bushes in mine as flowers need a lot of tending. Most of the flowering stuff in my garden are technically weeds.

Would you like to be rich, I mean REALLY rich?
It would make a lot of stuff meaningless – saving for retirement, working at all and so on. On the other hand, BRING IT ON!

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

If reincarnation exists, would you like to come back as a domestic pet or a wild animal?
If I was a domestic pet, it would have to be a cat. You get independence while still being looked after. Otherwise, a wild animal.

Do you think Zoos are a good idea?
They’re okay these days. When I was a kid it was a case of big animals in little cages but these days the animals have more freedom and there’s breeding programmes trying to look after endangered animals.

Have you ever been to a safari park?
Yes, in Aviemore in Scotland decades ago.

Have you visited an oceanarium?
I think I’ve been to an aquarium a long time ago, but I’m not positive. I was very young so I could be mis-remembering.

I had the week off last week and went for a few walks in various woods.

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

Do you like fireworks?
Not really. I like to see all the exploding colours but I don’t like the loud noise. I don’t like any loud things, which is why I never do the vacuuming or grass cutting 😉

Do you think fireworks should only be used by professionals?
Definitely. I think outside of professional displays they should be treated as explosives. Because that’s what they are.

Do you think today’s fireworks are value for money?
I don’t know how much they cost, but probably not.

The best bit about fireworks night is when they tell you how many tens of thousands of pounds the display cost. Because I’m sure all the homeless people far prefer seeing lights in the sky in the distance to having all that money spent on feeding and housing them.

What is your favourite and least favourite firework?
I don’t know anything about types of firework. I would prefer ones with lots of colour and not much bang.

Here is my post for Share Your World, hosted by Di.

How would you describe a wicked witch?
Pointy hat, pointy nose, warts, broomstick, cauldron and unfortunate victims bubbling away in the cauldron.

What would scare you most, a ghost or a headless horseman?
A ghost I think. At least with a headless horseman there’s some substance there to hit.

If you were attending a Halloween themed fancy dress party, what would you go as?
Myself. Scary stuff.

Do you have many Trick or Treat visitors on October 31st?
I had my godson (accompanied by his Mum) and another pair of kids with their Mum came along at the same time so knew they could come too. Then I had a couple of older girls a bit later. I don’t put out a plastic pumpkin though, which is the accepted signal that you’re open for business.

Mainly the kids troop round with their Mums and visit the houses of their friends from the local primary school.

I bought a whole tub of Heroes mini-chocolates, so I’m happily working my way through the rest 🙂