I got the last of the decorations up today (apart from something I have to make…which I will only be doing if I have time, and that is unlikely). I also got a lot of admin done and a lot of stuff watched on the digibox. Gotta keep that digibox clear for recording Christmas TV.
It’s nice now that I’m settling into December and have more time to get stuff ticked off my to-do list before Christmas. Looking forward to another productive day tomorrow.
OOTD: feeling recovered enough to set up my proper camera again! T-shirt Cyberdog (originally early 2000s, thrifted from Geth 2014), belt H&M (2017), tights Primark (2017), boots Carefree (2017).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Coldplay – Christmas Lights
Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper – Shallow
Pepsi & Shirlie – Heartache
Traditional – God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
New Order – Temptation
I finally got the decorations up today. Only eight days later than I usually do it!
It gives off a comforting glow.
I’ve got one last room to do, but that can wait till tomorrow.
OOTD: very nearly recovered from cold! Glasses Emporio Armani (2017), hoodie unknown brand (2009), t-shirt Gildan for Stranger Things (2017).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Robbie Williams – Dream A Little Dream
Duran Duran – A View To A Kill
Duran Duran – White Lines
Hardy Caprio and One Acen – Best Life
Spandau Ballet – True
Wings – Mull Of Kintyre
Ed Sheeran – Castle On The Hill
I didn’t get round to putting up the Christmas decorations today. The one remaining vestige of my cold is an irritating and painful stitch in my side that won’t go away, so I had a day on the sofa with books and Christmas cookery shows in the background. It was really, really nice just to chill out.
Back to the to-do list tomorrow!
OOTD: it’s another still-looking-a-bit-ill selfie in an ’80s jumper. Glasses Emporio Armani (2017), jumper Faber (vintage 1980s, bought at vintage fair 2018), jeans Vivid (2018).
Today’s earworm playlist:
The Human League – The Things That Dreams Are Made Of
Buzzcocks – Ever Fallen In Love
Gary Numan – Cars
John Williams – Harry Potter Main Theme
I didn’t have to leave the house today, for the first time in over a week! As a result, my cold symptoms are noticeably decreasing. I’m still looking forward to a quiet weekend indoors though, catching up with all the admin and other stuff I’ve not had time for over the last few mad weeks.
Might even have time to put the Christmas decorations up tomorrow! A full week later than usual, but never mind.
OOTD: still not a hundred percent, but looking a bit less deathlike. Glasses Emporio Armani (2017), jumper unknown brand (vintage 1980s, bought at vintage fair 2017).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Ariana Grande – Santa Tell Me
Duran Duran – Notorious
Buzzcocks – Ever Fallen In Love*
The Human League – The Things That Dreams Are Made Of
On Wednesday, as I mentioned, I was up in Edinburgh decorating Mum and Dad’s house for Christmas. My favourite part of doing Christmas decorations is always the tree, and Mum and Dad’s tree is extra especially awesome because the decorations are so old. I love old things!
Seventy years in the making.
It is beyond argument that I get my hoarding tendencies from Dad’s side of the family. Mum actually chucks things out. Thankfully for this post, Christmas tree decorations are an exception, and so we have an entire family collection going back to the 1940s. This means that, barring unforeseen circumstances, when I’m in my sixties I will own an entire century’s worth of Christmas tree decorations! I feel slightly giddy at the prospect.
Let’s go through some of the collection!
1940s
These pretty baubles with the indents were on Granny and Grandad MacLeod’s tree for Mum’s first Christmas in 1949. We have three of them. We did have four, but I ate one in 1986. I will tell you the fantastic story of this tasty, tasty bauble another time!
1950s
Our tree topper is a bride doll called Myra, which Mum received as a fourth birthday present in 1953. Her bouquet is a cake decoration, her veil is a handkerchief, and her hair is a bit of Granny MacLeod’s old hairnet! She’s not looking too shabby considering her age.
Most of the decorated glass baubles on the tree date from Mum’s childhood in the 1950s. The decoration on them is really gorgeous and intricate in a way that’s not really done anymore, and there are some really interesting shapes.
1960s
These two large baubles were bought by Granny MacLeod when Mum was a teenager. I always hang them on the top branches ’cause they balance out the sparser bit of the tree nicely.
1970s
These silver and red glitterball baubles were a later addition to Granny MacLeod’s collection.
These cellophane baubles were bought by Dad when he moved into his first flat in Edinburgh in 1978. Most of them are a bit worse for wear, because when we had our cat, José, I used to put them at the bottom of the tree so he’d have ornaments to rip down that weren’t the precious mid-century glass baubles. Cats and Christmas trees aren’t the greatest of mixtures.
1980s
We’ve had these cloth octagons with angels on since probably the early ’80s, since I don’t remember a Christmas without them. They’re not much to look at, but they’re perfumed, and the perfume is absolutely DIVINE – it’s the ultimate smell of Christmas for me, really primal, as it’s been a scent associated with our Christmas tree since I was born. Dad doesn’t like them, so I always put them round the back of the tree where I know I can go have a sniff whenever I like!
This wooden teddy bear was a gift from Sheila and Jim next door for my first Christmas in 1985.
Every year in the late ’80s, my Cooke grandparents, Grandad and Anne, would bring a homemade decoration each for me and my brother Malcolm, either knitted or embroidered by Anne. I always still put these on the ‘correct’ side of the tree – we each had a side of the tree that was our own when we were little!
Mum’s friend Judy sent this gorgeous metal decoration in 1989.
1990s
We’ve had a bit of a Canadian theme going with our tree decorations since long before we acquired my Canadian sister-in-law Steff. This teddy bear decoration was one we bought on a trip to New Brunswick in 1994. It was the first time any of us had ever seen an all-year-round Christmas shop, so we had to go in and buy a decoration!
My step-auntie Elaine gave us this pretty delicate gold ornament from Turkey some time in the ’90s. There’s also a rectangular one in the same material with a heart pattern.
This globe bauble – another nice big bauble for near the top of the tree – was a gift from Grandad and Anne. I can’t remember exactly where in the world it came from though!
I bought this glitterball bauble in Jenners in Princes Street in 1999 for the small artificial tree in my bedroom, which was all silver that year for the Y2K theme. One of the many endearing things about the 20th century was that silver = the future. When I think of 1999, I just remember all my makeup being silver and plum and ice blue, and every piece of clothing I bought that year being shiny and metallic and in similarly cool colours.
2000s
Our family friend Billy brought us this souvenir from the Empire State Building in the early ’00s.
We have oodles of these felt things – they were an advent calendar gift from Mum’s friend Elisabet in 2006. There were so many that Mum gave some to me for my own tree and so I’ll be putting them up in Newcastle this weekend!
I bought this ‘gift’ for José in the late ’00s. It didn’t have catnip in it, so he wasn’t that interested. There’s also a ‘Special Dad’ one for Dad that matches it!
We have quite a lot of wooden ornaments from more recent times. This one was bought by Mum and Dad in the Munich Christmas market in 2009.
2010s
Continuing with the Canadian theme, Geth brought this maple leaf back from Toronto in 2010.
Geth and I brought this Guinness bauble back from a trip to Dublin in 2012. It has its own fancy box! It’s another one that I hang at the top of the tree.
Mum and Dad bought this pretty wooden snowman ornament in Liverpool in 2014.
Also in 2014, Anne gave Steff this owl ornament (Steff likes owls). Steff keeps it in Edinburgh as her ‘Edinburgh owl’.
In 2017, Dad, who has really got into Scandi stuff in the last few years, bought this ‘tomten’ in Sweden – apparently it’s a traditional Christmas decoration there.
Also in 2017, Steff’s parents Mike and Antoniette gave us a couple of silver decorations, including this pretty treble clef.
There are so many more, but this is a good selection of highlights! If the family acquires any more during Christmas 2018, I’ll make sure to tell you about them.
Back to a normal(ish) Thursday today. I made it to Slimming World, even if I was half-dozing through group, and then my Pilates class got cancelled ’cause my instructor is also ill, so I’ve been able to have a nice quiet afternoon – and finally had the chance to read through my entire 120,000-word NaNo novel. Looking forward to getting stuck into the editing over the next couple of months!
I’ve got a totally quiet weekend coming up, so hopefully I’ll finally have the chance to get over my cold properly.
I did want to get caught up with my OOTDs for the last few days, but honestly, I’ve just been wearing my ’80s jumper collection with jeans and leggings because I feel so rotten and need comforting jumpers on, and have been taking ill-looking selfies that nobody needs to see. OOTD pictures to return when I start feeling better!
Today’s earworm playlist:
Queen – We Are The Champions
Ed Sheeran – Castle On The Hill
Ozzy Osbourne and Kelly Osbourne – Changes
Duran Duran – The Chauffeur
Dean Lewis – Be Alright
Only just got back to Newcastle – again – after spending the day in Edinburgh doing Mum and Dad’s Christmas decorations. Knackered now, so just a quick post tonight!
Today’s earworm playlist:
Heaven 17 – Let Me Go
Alannah Myles – Black Velvet
Teardrop Explodes – Reward
Slade – Merry Xmas Everybody
Ed Sheeran – Perfect
Nicki Minaj – Super Bass
Heaven 17 – Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry
Adele – Someone Like You
Jax Jones, Mabel and Rich The Kid – Ring Ring
Band Aid – Do They Know It’s Christmas?
The Human League – The Things That Dreams Are Made Of
Now that I’m no longer at a music festival (now, that was well timed with being so ill!) I am really feeling the effects of the weekend, and am very slow and groggy. It took me until eleven to crawl out of bed this morning, as I was just feverish and dozing up until that point. Once I’m up, though, the Lemsip Max Strength really helps, and I was able to get a bit of admin done today.
Tomorrow I might even catch up with my OOTDs. They’re all a bit sickly-looking though!
Today’s earworm playlist:
Duran Duran – Come Undone
Culture Club – Victims
Ariana Grande – Santa Tell Me
Soft Cell – Say Hello, Wave Goodbye
The Human League – The Things That Dreams Are Made Of
By Sunday, I was really starting to feel the effects of trying to do a music festival with a bad cold, and so I sort of staggered through the day powered by a lot of Lemsip Max Strength! I’d given up drinking by this point as well, which meant the drunks in the venue were even more annoying.
The Butlins cooked breakfast hadn’t done it for me the day before, so I went for a giant stack of pancakes on the Sunday morning, which was marginally tastier. Geth and I then went back to the hotel room and groggily took ages getting showers and things, so we were a little late into the Centre Stage for the Sunday afternoon session and the first band had already started.
Bands I didn’t see on day 3: nobody, because it was just stand-up comedy in the Reds bar on the Sunday, so I didn’t have to miss any bands!
Bands I did see on day 3:
Black Box
Black Box were mainly doing their late ’80s/early ’90s dance classics, but there was a good highlight where they did a mash-up of Sweet Dreams and Seven Nation Army with the vocals from the former over the bassline of the latter. They also (obviously) finished with Ride On Time, which was much appreciated by the crowd!
Big Country
Big Country get super major plus points for being the only band of the weekend with the balls to make a ‘Hi-De-Hi’ gag. Great stuff. I was also excited to tick off the first of the ‘message’ artists on my Band Aid baby bucket list!
Otherwise it was a very enjoyable hit-laden set – with Look Away, Wonderland, and Fields Of Fire (complete with an interesting interpolation of Whiskey In The Jar) all present and correct! In another example of the Butlins stage managers not being able to deal with bands trying to do encores, the band went offstage and the DJ launched into Heaven 17’s Temptation (at which point I expressed my surprise to Geth that the band hadn’t done In A Big Country and Geth shrugged and went off to the bar to get us another drink)…and then Temptation abruptly cut out and the band came back on. ‘We are Heaven 17!’ announced Bruce Watson wryly, before we finally got our rendition of In A Big Country. I have no idea what’s going on with Butlins and their aversion to encores.
We then had a good long break before the evening session, which gave us some recovery time to have a bit of a doze.
Sunday OOTD: still in my ‘ill at a festival’ uniform! Jacket unknown brand (estimated vintage 1990s, bought at vintage shop 2003), necklace Claire’s Accessories (2003), t-shirt Punk Masters (2018), jeans Levi (2018), boots Primark (2017).
Peter Hook & The Light
We’d already seen Peter Hook & The Light at Infest this year, but as I’ve alluded to, the crowd at Electric Dreams is a vastly different type of audience. As such, it was a subtly different show, with more of an end-of-term party atmosphere – Hooky, resplendent in a Christmas T-shirt, explained that it was their last gig of the year, and we got the first (but strangely not the last) of the evening’s Jimmy Savile jokes. Geth went down to the front of the stage while I kept the seats, and from where I was sitting, it just felt really, really weird when the crowd didn’t react at all to the band launching into Joy Division classics like Transmission (especially as I last saw the band at a goth festival with lots of other goths, a subculture in which the Joy Division stuff is absolutely sacrosanct). Geth reported after the set that from his viewpoint near the front of the stage, the band pretty much phoned in the first couple of Joy Division songs until they realised that there was a small group of people down the front who were actually fans, after which they did things properly.
The audience all went nuts for Blue Monday though, so that’s something! Hooky also did the gag about turning the lights up on the crowd and then immediately going ‘argh, no!’, which would probably have been funnier if Big Country hadn’t done the exact same joke earlier that day.
The set was pretty much the same as when I saw them at Infest, except for there being a couple of extra New Order songs – they did Regret, which is one of my absolute favourites (I had it on my Greatest Hits of 1993 album when I was eight). It was also great to hear Temptation again, because the music geek in me was thrilled that it was the first of two famous Temptations we’d hear that night…
Heaven 17
…because Heaven 17 were headlining, and they were hardly going to avoid playing their Temptation, were they?
Before the inevitable closing song, though, we got all the classics – (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang, Come Live With Me, Let Me Go – and a lot of very funny stage banter between Martyn Ware and Glenn Gregory, who’ve been doing this stuff for nearly forty years and have moved firmly into ‘old married couple’ territory. This included another Jimmy Savile gag (apparently he introduced their first Top of the Pops appearance) and some slightly risqué Morecambe and Wise references.
There was a cover of David Bowie’s Let’s Dance, which is another song that’s a bit of a theme for covers at the moment. They also played Being Boiled, which was the Human League’s biggest hit while Martyn Ware was still with the band – which meant that in the space of five days, Geth and I managed to see Being Boiled performed by both the Human League and Heaven 17! Geth preferred the Human League performance, while I gave the edge to Heaven 17. Both brilliant and very different though!
I enjoyed the performance so much that I was really surprised when they launched into Temptation to finish the set – it honestly felt to me like they’d only been playing for about five minutes. I’m so thrilled I got to see them, and not just because it means more artists ticked off my Band Aid baby bucket list! I’ll make sure to get tickets again when they’re next on tour.
Afterwards, Geth and I finished our drinks and sloped off to get some rest. All in all, it was a fantastic weekend of music and the bands were great…it was just a shame we had to go to Butlins to see them.
