Random Thoughts Thursday

• I’m flying tomorrow for a long weekend to Greece. I’ll be visiting my parents for a few days. Since I will not be going there over the Christmas holidays, I thought it would be a good idea to go now. I had booked this holiday I think before we even started negotiating for our house. Unfortunately that would have been the first weekend I could have spent in my new place. It would be great to wake up there and do things around the house. And gosh, there are still lots of things to be done. But, I’m thinking that I will be spending there so many weekends in the years to come, I can just pass this one.

•  Speaking of my parents, I need to say that they've been generally supportive of me buying a place with JJ. They can understand the waste of money in paying rent and how a property can be a great investment for the future. My father haven’t said much, but my mother even suggested coming to help us out a bit. They generally don’t do things separately and I know that she would hate to leave him alone even for a few days, but I really appreciate the offer. My father was impressed on the way we handled things and negotiated the house down as we did. But he still finds it hard to even mention JJ or acknowledge his existence. If my mother comes and meets JJ, that would be great progress.

• I’m starting to feel the holiday season at last. We finished yesterday writing Christmas cards that I’ll try to send out today. We haven’t decorated our house yet, but we’re thinking of getting a big proper Christmas tree. Since I came to the UK I’ve never had one. It will be fun. Traditionally in Greece, Christmas decorations go up on St. Nicholas’ day (6^th of December) till the Epiphany (6^th January). We’re thinking of visiting next week the ‘Winter Wonderland’ in Hyde Park as well. We’ve also invited some friends over on Christmas day. By then, I’m hoping to get rid of the boxes and tidy up the place.

• Did you do any shopping on Black Friday or Cyber Monday? I like how these American terms are creeping in UK every day life. They don’t really fit since there's no Thanksgiving Day, but I can’t really complain on having offers on various things. Since my budget at the moment is really tight I went only a couple old school PC games and a DLC. I got 'Age of Empires HD edition', 'Fallout 2' and 'Dragonborn' for Skyrim. I hadn’t had the chance to play them yet, but I will.