I noticed an uncommon trend before the recent Christmas festivities. On my various travels about the district, I saw that two Christmas trees had been left abandoned in various stages of distress. The first was intact and left nonchalently propped against a wall, as if no-one would notice it standing there; the second had its top ripped off and looked worse for wear, slumped against someone’s front wall in the middle of the street. Of course, seeing such strangeness before Christmas Day prompted the Missus and myself to speculate how these once fine specimens of evergreen tree had come to be dumped. The most plausible thing we came up with was that maybe a drunken husband had returned home with said tree and the houseproud wife, recoiling in horror at the thought of the tree dropping needles over her spotless home, instructs the husband to make the tree “disappear” pronto. The other alternative was that the fellows who had bought these trees got so pissed off at trying to decorate them with baubles and tinsel that they had a man-sized hissy fit and chucked them out. But who knows what really happened, eh?


Remember folks, a Christmas tree is for Christmas…er…you get the idea.
Of course, after the season of goodwill has passed, it is quite common for the dullards of Loughton to take their unwanted and pathetic-looking trees and dump them on any open space they can find, instead of leaving them out for the recycling collection. This means you will find the remains of said trees littering the area well into Easter. Cretins!
The good news was that today I had my yearly eye check and I impressed my optometrist Dr Hu (no relation to Doctor Who) with my performance. I actually began to show-off and recite the tiniest lettering on the chart in sad-attempt at macho showboating. He was incredulous when he told me that my eyesight had actually IMPROVED from the previous year. I was very pleased with myself, but not so pleased when I had to pay £51 for a prescription for weaker lenses in my glasses. He checked out my eye crystals again and told me that they had remained unchanged and these were probably just a feature of my eye. Of course, I’ll need to see him again in twelve months to keep an eye on the situation. (Did you see what I did there…I made a funny).
Anyhoo, an afternoon in the pub followed by a snooze on the sofa and I am ready for the death throes of 2006. Roll on 2007 and whatever the new year might throw at me. Bring it on! I am feeling pretty invincible at the moment…
(Eeek, that sounds like a kick in the pants is due)

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