Christmas (quite) crackers

A chilled, if grey, Christmas Day. I've mainly done quite banal things. A workout on the spinning bike. Some tidying of the garden in a rare dry patch mid morning. Some laundry. Some eating and drinking, including Mr A's first essay of home cured gravadlax which was super tasty, followed by the haunch of venison.

And of course a Christmas Day swim. We were not the only crackers people. Whilst we were there, four other people got out of cars and piled onto the beach and into the sea. So the disease appears to be quite widespread.

It was pretty cold, but really beautiful and totally calming to be in the sea. It seemed ridiculous, when I left Tain in the car under a spitting grey sky, to be heading off to swim in the sea at 3pm, but minutes after I arrived at the beach it didn't feel so bonkers at all.

Dinner has been consumed, wine has been opened, and I'm back to reading on the sofa. I've left behind the feel good story of Mary Lawson (Crow Lake) and picked up Satnam Sanghera's Empireland. This is number 22 of the year. Let's see whether I get through it by New Year's Eve.