I prefer to post above the line most of the time, on musical topics, with just the occasional foray down here, but I thought I'd add a little to the thread (glad it's a civilised one).

On Christmas Day there was me and Mrs F., her mum (age 90, lives over the road), our son, his partner and 3 grandkids for much of the day. They all went home to respective houses around 3 and I settled down to a double stint with the dishwasher and a gigantic kitchen clean-up! M-I-L had had a bit of a strop the previous day, as she does now and then, saying she wanted to be alone and no-one ever talked to her and it was all too much fuss, etc. (Shades of Dickens's "I'm a lorn, lone creetur" in Pickwick Papers!). But, after a bit of a talking-to from Mrs F. - She Who Must Be Obeyed - all went well and she enjoyed the day. Whew!

I bought myself a s/h Martin guitar a few weeks ago, so that was really my Christmas present to myself, but I was also treated to a wonderful book by Christopher de Hamel (Fellow and Librarian of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge) called "Meetings With Memorable Manuscripts" - which takes the reader on a journey to meet twelve medieval illuminated MSS in various libraries across the world. Superb scholarship mixed with wit and clarity and fantastic illustrations - what better combination could there be - and I spent a huge chunk of Boxing Day reading it, in between cooking the venison steaks with dauphinoise potatoes and enjoying more washing up (!).

I see that many people here wear jeans. Not for me - I wore my last pair of jeans about 40 years ago - but good old moleskins! I stopped wearing jeans while doing a lot of walking in all weathers - Pennine Range, Dorset coastal path, Langdales, etc. - and realised that the old-timers were right: wet denim gets you chilled very quickly. So it's moleskin in winter and white cotton in summer.

My son, who's in the wine trade, bought me a small bottle of Japanese whisky - apparently the Japanese have produced some really good whiskies - and I had a shot on Christmas Day. Very smooth - and 50% ABV. But I'll finish the bottle of Jura before I really tackle it...

The music gigs finished about a week ago, but I've been playing as much as I can in all spare moments - when not gawping at Mudcat threads!