We’re taking a pause in the newsletters and quiz for a few days as everyone is so distracted. We're now in the post-Xmas, pre-New Year void when it sort of feels like a half-powered version of normal life. We spent 24th/25th in Edinburgh staying at, what used to be called a ‘Youth Hostel’, many years ago, until they realised it wasn’t just for young people and turned into a sort of hotel. We had our own en-suite room. Very nice, if utilitarian, which is an aesthetic I like. Also good to be able to cook your own food. I prefer to do that anyway, probably because I’m a rather precious cook and I find most restaurants are not to my standard. Well I’ve been doing it since I was 18, so I should be good by now.
It’s also a good way to meet people from all over the world, often interesting people not so much bothered by the usual Christmas conventions. We saw some Japanese people who ate a meal of noodles, sausages and boiled eggs, which looked tasty but unusual.
We had something called a ‘festive’ meal at the Hard Rock Cafe, which was OK but I don’t know what was festive about the salmon and mashed potatoes. And I have to say, the music was absolutely appalling. Hours of squawking, auto-tuned artificiality with accompanying trashy videos. Gentle Giant it wasn’t!
Hard Rock cafes should have to answer to the trading standards authorities because it's like a shop called ‘Delicious Fish’ which doesn’t sell any fish and specializes in bubblegum. It’s a false prospectus. You can’t have somewhere called Hard Rock referring to a genre of music that’s just never played in favour of playing K-Pop to appeal to the 11-year-olds.
It’s like life in the 70s - a time when rock was outlawed to a small number of places and was to be feared otherwise. These were times when even guitar solos were faded out.
We came back, having left the cat for two nights. He was fine and I doubt he missed us. We’re currently, (well, Dawn is) tidying and cleaning ahead of a viewing tomorrow morning. They’re coming up from London, so this will seem like another world entirely. And cheap. Hopefully it’s successful.
On top of that, Dawn is engaged in creating a few new designs for the New Year. I like the new year, it all seems downhill to summer. It should be a significant year for us, selling the house and buying somewhere new. I’m planning on getting a 3-wheel ‘Easy Rider’ push bike and a pneumatic wheelchair that copes with cobbles, gravel and sand in a bid to develop a more active lifestyle, once we’ve sold DJTees. It’s something to look forward to.
The thing is, we have no idea how long it will take to achieve, could be weeks or months so there is some uncertainty but equally the future feels unwritten and exciting.
If you’re a DJTees regular, as seems likely if you’re reading this, we’ll be going into SALE in the New Year, not sure what the discounts will be. We’ve got to make it up yet! So get your pennies ready! There’ll be lots of great new shirts to take us into a new year and this whole festive period will thankfully be behind us for another year.
