Not the best way to spend a day

 It comes to something when the highlight of my day was driving to the airport to pick up TP. It was lovely to catch up with him after his New Year celebrations in Dublin. Apparently plenty of Guinness was drunk, good food was eaten and he even managed a walk in the Wicklow mountains.

As for me, my day started with a trip to the Eye Clinic for a check up. My IOP is coming down nicely and the other issues appear to be improving too. That was it, nothing more. I hauled my arse out of bed, drove to Worcester and got nothing more than, "yep it all looks OK, carry on with the treatment, and see you at some point in the future for another check up".

I've already mentioned the precisely timed trip to Birmingham to collect TP. It was precisely timed as you only get ten minutes free parking at the airport and I'd rather fritter away my cash on something other than NCP fees.

On our return we called at 30%'s brother's house for a New Year get together. It was OK, I suppose. A decent cup of coffee and a rather nice slice of cake was served, but there is a BUT ... Every time we meet with 30%'s family, they descend in to extremely tedious conversations about people and events of which I have absolutely no knowledge.

I sit quietly on the outer edge of these conversations bored and unable to participate. I spend my time half listening and wondering for just how long they will continue.  I know it would be seen as very rude to opt out of these get togethers, but isn't it equally rude to spend all afternoon in a conversation that excludes members of the party?

30% mentioned that I was very quiet at her brother's house and asked if I was alright. I pointed out that it is very difficult to take part in a conversation when I have met the subjects of discussion on only one or two brief occasions many years ago.

Unusually for 30%, there was no rebuttal.

MNX*

I find it quite odd that the most peculiar and irrelevant items can be recalled from one's childhood and adolescence. I can have problems recalling what I did yesterday, but strange oddities from well over forty years ago pop in to my mind. I don't know what triggers them. They just turn up, out of the blue.

I had one of those distant memory experiences when thinking about today's Journal entry. I knew what I was going to write about and the title of the entry sprang fully formed in my mind. As it rattled around in my brain I noticed that it was dragging along a memory of a long distant English lesson. That lesson was about wordplay and the teacher introduced us to a book called Let stalk strine by Professor Afterbeck Lauder.  For some reason it has stuck with me ever since and I believe that this is still regarded as one of the finest works about the Australian dialect.

I don't recall whether the lesson included rebuses, but MNX is well known rebus puzzle, and one simply has to say the letters out loud to reach its solution; "ham and eggs".  

So, how does ham and eggs apply to today's events? Well, I wandered up to the chicken coop this morning and ensured that they had food and water. I peered inside the coop and noticed an egg on the floor. They have finally started to lay about 157 days, or 22 weeks, after hatching.  Normally I wouldn't expect them to start laying until the day length is noticeably increasing in early March. I don't know whether any of the other pullets will follow suit in the coming days, or whether we will be waiting a while for the next one.

And now to the ham. At the request of 30%, I grabbed a carving knife and sliced up the remainder of our Christmas ham. This was divided in to portions, vacuum packed and frozen. 

So, there you have it. New Years day summed up in three letters; MNX.

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* a rebus