Every single Christmas starts the same way for me..

…. with a Hangover.

Every year on Christmas Eve my parents go to the midnight Church service, while I go next door ….. to the pub ….. just like Jesus would have wanted. The main problem here is that I only come back home once a year and so have a lot of catching up to do with the locals …. which just leads to much drinking and hence the Christmas day hangover. I never mean to do it, it just sort of happens.

This year will be different.

Because I`ve spent the whole of Christmas eve lying in bed ill.

Being bi-directionally ill to be exact.

The only thing I`ve dared to eat today was a bowl of chicken and vegetable soup, mainly because it looks exactly the same when it comes back out.

I`m starting to feel a little better now though and hope to have made a full recovery in time for tomorrow morning which means I can look forward to the same argument I have every year with my mum, when she tries to put brussels sprouts - or as I call them The Devils hemorrhoids on my plate hidden inside the mash.

But at least this year wont start with a hangover …..

… probably.

Happy Christmas!!!

Before I get going I need to make a note to remind myself to always remember to get changed out of my gym kit before walking home here in Belgium. The other day I finished my (amazing) workout, shouted abuse at some of the weeds in the gym, donned my long overcoat and started to walk home. The thing is the weather has started to turn pretty nasty here in Belgium and there was a strong wind outside. Basically this resulted in me walking home wearing shorts and a long overcoat, which, unfortunately for me resulted in me looking like either a flasher or a transvestite, much to the amusement of pretty much everyone who drove past me on the, thankfully, short walk home.

The next day I made sure to change into my work clothes before stepping outdoors.

Other things I`ve been up to, besides travelling back to Aberdeen to give another lecture at the university there, and spending 2 weeks in California, I`ve been immersing myself more and more into the Belgian culture. Of course by Belgian culture I mean drinking beer. The Belgians, as I have said before, take their beer extremely seriously. There are something like 850 ‘normal’ beers here, and each and every one comes with its own branded glass. Serving someone a beer in the wrong glass is almost unforgivable, which is why I`ve made the most of my local supermarket selling those glasses this past week, by buying up something close to 15 different kinds of beer glass. No doubt someone will still turn up wanting a beer for which I don’t have the correct glass, in which case they`ll just have to drink it from the bottle. The thing is that on my last trip to the shop to buy glasses I noticed they had a beer which I`d not had before. Gordon’s finest Platinum. I`m told that the Belgians have a special category for only a select few of their beers, and this particular type was classified as a ‘Super Beer’. Wow. Coming from the Belgians that must be something special. So now I have a bottle of it sitting in my collection, ready for Christmas.

I`ll let you know how it is then.

But as its 12% alc vol there is a good chance I won`t remember.