Well, it’s the Christmas holidays, so I’m going to indulge in recording some of the frivolities that have surrounded the festive season for me. My last week of term was crazy – I went out to something every evening from Saturday to Saturday! I’ll run through all the stuff that was keeping me busy:
On Saturday 10th Decemeber, I went to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with the Navigators and other friends, before going immediately afterwards to the Christian Union Christmas dinner (my second Christmas dinner of the year, after the church student lunch the previous Sunday). The Narnia film was pretty good, though lacked a certain extra magical sparkle to make it really brilliant. Good entertainment, but it could have been more. I organised the trip, but found that somehow we were one ticket short just as we were heading in! I dashed down to the ground floor to buy a ticket, and fortunately they weren’t sold out.
Immediately afterwards, some of us headed off to the Christian Union Christmas dinner (my second Christmas dinner of the year, after the church student lunch the previous Sunday). This was great fun – good food and good company, as we stuffed ourselves with turkey and chatted, took pictures and had fun. 
This included running around jumping on the balloons to make as loud a bang as possible, singing Christmas carols around the piano (in particular some of the Cosmeston Street Girls and Swithin), dancing around like an idiot (me) and the like. There may have been some civilized conversation going on, but I wouldn’t know anything about that!
Sunday – Church in the morning at Mack, as usual. It was my last meeting there until next year, so I was rather sorry to have to say my goodbyes! I really feel at home at Mack now – it’s a very warm fellowship, a lovely bunch of people. In the evening I went to the “Reclaiming Christmas for Christ” event at the Chaplaincy, which involved singing some carols and a bishop blessing the Christmas tree and all those there, followed by mulled wine, mince pies and sitting around chatting.
Monday – I got bored of working on my Critical theory essay partway through the gatecrashed the Talybont Hall Group Christmas social!
Tuesday – My third Christmas dinner so far of the year, this time with the Navigators! The picture on the left is of Phil, the Navs leader, looking none-too-delighted as I took a picture of him when he stood up to wish us Merry Christmas. I had a good time, and some interesting conversation, such as discussing the idea of post-consumerist economics with Swithin, who studies economics. That’s something that deserves a blog post all of its own…
After I got back to my house, we had a pleasant visit from the Cosmeston Street Girls, Vicki, Helen, Becci, but minus Shima, who came round to deliver a Christmas cake that the four of them had baked. They were “doing the rounds” of friends, apparently, and the cake even had “Merry Christmas” in Welsh for my benefit – I was muchly impressed!
Wednesday – In a fit of absentmindedness, I’d just said “Oh yes, I’ll come” when Ben had asked me if I wanted to go to Winter Wonderland with friends. It wasn’t until the evening before when he reminded me of this that it really hit me – I had agreed to go ice-skating. Nooooooooooo!
Now, I had only been ice-skating once before in my life. Ruth Cox and family had invited me along, so I joined them on an outing to an ice rink in Telford. Let’s just say that the usual term for the kind of thing that happened is “hilarious consequences”. It wouldn’t have been so bad if a) some people hadn’t been pointing and laughing as they went past and b) Ruth’s dad hadn’t caught my exploits on camera. So it was with no small amount of trepidition that I once again took to the ice. I didn’t have as long a session, but I think I managed to reach the same level of (in)competence in one hour that it took me three hours to reach on my first attempt. Anyway, it was good fun and I had chance to meet some new people, including Katie’s sister Gemma, and it was another chance to talk to Becky, who became a Christian earlier this term.
But that wasn’t the end of Wednesday’s activities. A few weekends ago, my housemates and I entered the Clever Dick Quiz at the student union bar, which we won, thanks in large part to Steve and Tom’s encyclopaedic knowledge of music! As our prize, we won £60 worth of vouchers for the bar, which we’d only used half of, and so after the last CU meeting of term we went with some friends to use it up, and so had rather a lot of soft drinks and packets of crisps to get throught!
Thursday – Now this was a busy day. I realised just before going to sleep on Wednesday night that I’d completely forgotten to prepare for my History seminar at 11am, and so got up early to struggle through some reading on the Cathars, but was struggling to concentrate. Fortunately for me everyone else in the seminar seemed to be pretty tired too so I didn’t stick out too much!
Then I dashed into town to get my last few presents for people, which was particularly urgent since my housemates and I were exchanging our “Secret Santa” presents that evening. But the pressure was on, since I needed to be back to see Richard Gwyn about my Creative Writing portfolio by 1:50! I managed to catch an hour’s nap at home, which I needed, since I then had another History lecture, a visit to a potential house for next academic year with my housemates, out for dinner with my housemates, and then off to Cosmeston Street for a Games evening – phew!
When I arrived at the home of Becci, Helen, Shima and Vicki, I sang the following song to the tune of “Hark the herald angels sing”, which I’d somehow found time to compose to say thanks for the cake:
Hark! The Cosmeston Girls Bake,
They brought smiles and Christmas cake.
Thanks indeed
for being kind,
Nice your cake we all did find!
Please excuse the lousy rhyme,
Written in quite short a time.
Thanks! To the Cosmestonites
for making us those tasty bites
Thanks! To the Cosmeston Girls
Friends like you are better than pearls!
That last line is rather cheesy, but there aren’t many decent rhymes for “Girls”! And it’s not quite true that we all liked the cake, since Ben isn’t a fan of Christmas cake, but he said that as Christmas cakes go, it seems very good, and appreciated the gift!
Funnily enough, many of the Cardiff CU bloggers were round at the Cosmestonite’s Games Evening. Perhaps those who are likely to wile away their time on a blog are more likely to wile away their evening at something like that. Whatever the reason, Alison, Becky Lamb, Bev, Ian (though since he’s only updated his blog around once in the last year I don’t think he really counts!), Jamie, Katie and Steve Tilson were all there at various points in the evening. What’s more, Vicky has now ascended to the giddy realms of blogdom and started recording The Ponderings of Vickrum.
Anyway, we had a fun evening eating sweets, playing games like Taboo and Mafia, and just generally chatting and having a nice time. Some of the more memorable moments included such things as the Ben apparently saying “pregnant chavs”, learning of Becci’s ‘engagement’ and Matt Bater “accidentally” cheating at Mafia!
As well as all this, I was also been trying to write and deliver Christmas cards, buy presents for friends and family, and, last but not least, actually continue my university work. Guess which came out worst! Friday was considerably quieter as I got on with packing, but even that wasn’t complete without a trip out with Ben, Ian and Steve to the Taff for a drink. I then headed back to our house, happy in the knowledge that I’d soon be home in Dolgellau and able to collapse in an exhausted heap…
Come back soon for Caleb’s Christmas: Episode II: Return to Dolgellau!
