Shopping without cash

Either to borrow or buy for a pickup tomorrow evening! 

Did Xmas in Southern India years ago, odd having piped carols when there was no actual celebration.  Cuba was nice and chilled.  Viet Nam before mass tourism on a very quiet beach.  Mexico/ Oaxaca was lovely and sunny with a radish festival too.  Iceland was exactly that - cold and very icy and we got snowed in.  My favourite in Spain was Granada and going down to the beach (and swimming) on Xmas day.  Did the same in Morocco.  Central Nigeria was a different one with lots of singing and dancing at a three hour church service and all the bright colours.  Two times in small resorts in France skiing, once with an absolute bucket full of snow on Xmas evening.  Mountain restaurants open. London dull in comparison.  Not that I am competing of course.

It's Christmas, Mal, I'd like to think admin may be a bit looser at this time of year. Goodwill to all men and all that, even Scousers, the French and some Canadians. Have an easy-peeler, a Morrisons own brand Cinzano and lemonade, a toke on this beauty, listen to my post-dubstep-style mash-up of 'Little Donkey' and Frankie Knuckles' 'Your Love' and let the thread go where it will. We're strangely reverential about the Christmas period in this country. Christmas Day in Spain is a bit different, the big day is 'Kings' Day' on the 6th of January.  I've spent a couple of Christmases in a tiny village in the Sierra Nevada outside Granada with an (English) ex-girlfriend's family and it's exhausting to celebrate both British and Spanish style. You start on Christmas Eve, then Christmas Day, Boxing Day, a village fiesta apropos of nothing to do with Christmas, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, the neighbouring village's fiesta, and only then the big day of Kings' on the 6th. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone that's posted on the 'Fireworks' thread, I thought is was a reenactmentent of Guernica. Thankfully, Coviran - it's a bit like Spar used to be - do an excellent 'Feliz Navidad' fiesta package of six bottles of local red, six white, 24 bottles of Alhambra beer and an okay-quality Serrano jamon (with stand and knife) for about the price of a decent round in the EDT. One fiesta deal every couple of days works well. Christmas Day in Toronto is like any other day, just  even duller - Sunday-service transport and the  LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) shop is shut. Those who take their drinking seriously need to plan ahead. They also have a strange custom of going to the pictures on Christmas Day evening, rather than watching 'Oliver!' and trying to fleece your niece for her Christmas cash in a game of Connect Four. It's a bit different in Goa, but brilliant. It was a Portuguese colony, so they go mad on it. It's quite magical. I spent one Christmas Day where, after seeing the previous night's hangover off with a prawn caldine and a bottle of local coconut feni, the tide ebbed away to reveal the most perfect, flat wicket for a game of tape-ball cricket. 25 or so a side, ravers versus locals, I batted in the middle order and was building a solid, if unspectacular, innings until I hit a pull shot of such exquisite timing it still visits me in my dreams, only to be caught at square leg by a little, local lad, bollocks-deep in the surf and wearing a Santa hat. Christmas isn't what it used to be. Keep the parks open!

I hope it's ok to use this thread to ask for advice on a separate issue in relation to TJ Medical Practice. A friend of mine who is registered there has recently been diagnosed with a serious long-term condition. He has been struggling to find a good GP at the practice since the departure of Dr Love and I said I would try to find out which of the remaining GPs other patients have found most capable and sympathetic - particularly for the scenario of overseeing ongoing care for a long-term progressive illness. Is there any particular GP that people would recommend?  Very many thanks.