It’s hard to believe Christmas is almost apon us. Where has December gone?
Certainly, in my case, a large chunk of it has gone on night shift, where I seem to have been living for the last 3 weeks, working at the front line of – getting you home safely from the Christmas party that you drank too much at.
However, although I could ramble on about the specialist joys of dealing with a public who don’t actually know where they are -or in some cases- who- they are, I am instead going to reflect, more seasonably, on chocolate.
My wife (aka the very lovely Chris) is a big fan of “dark” chocolate, and in this house, anything below a 70% coco bean concentration, is regarded, with some suspicion, as not really being chocolate at all.
Proper “dark Chocolate” (95-100%) appears to my primative palette, to be raw crushed beans ground together in a fine paste, still to each their own . In my own upringing, a bar of old Jamician Bournville would represent the height of the exotic, that, or a Dark Bounty!
In a misguided effort to please, earlier this month, I purchased a “grown up” dark choc advent callander as a gift, which gesture, although appreciated (I really am an old romatic at heart), fell somewhat short on the “dark” aspect (perhaps 70%, maybe less?), so in consequence, although it was intended as a solitary treat for lovely wife, I have been allowed to partake (help dispose of).
This is no hardship, as I do have a bit of a sweet tooth, and thus each other day I have my santa/snowman/christmas tree/snowflake/present until Friday when I could not immediately identify my chocolate treat.
It was a penguin.
A PENGUIN? and as I reflect on the matter, they turn up quite a lot in Christmas cards too.
So, what is the festive connection? Perhaps some ancient pre-pagan mythology?
Spheniscidae Aptenodytes pulling the sleigh? (Come Splasher, come Fisher….). Is it really just that they are creatures associated with the cold? Where’s my chocolate Yak? Seal? Walrus? Yeti (we can have flying reindeer but no Yeti?). Or is it just that somewhere a lazy designer thought Penguins lived in lapland (presumably getting eaten by Polar bears) and no-one picked up on it?
Sometimes you can have too long to think, on night shift.
Anyway on that note, I bid you “Merry Christmas, each and everyone!” .
Next week on IaDL. 2022, you’re kidding me right?
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Dalmallyfest the Asylum 