Christmas Day

“What I’m asking you to entertain is that there is nothing we need to believe on insufficient evidence in order to have deeply ethical and spiritual lives.”

Sam Harris

Wednesday

I wake up at 7.00 am. That is 13 hours sleep.

My eye is still not great. I have resigned myself to it never getting better. I will wear an eye patch and tell people a bear took my eye one Christmas morning in Gamlitz, Austria.

The temperature is -2C but there is no snow. Fine blue skies.

I light the fire.

I am determined to not start drinking until after 12.00 pm today.

We make some calls to family and with them a Merry Christmas.

Breakfast and once again there is nothing to do.

There is some anxiety brewing over the pork. Crackling is a must and the cut of pork is perfect, but I don’t have a knife sharp enough to score the skin.

I will read my book and think on it.

Maybe a wine will help.

I drank a bottle of wine for company. It was pleasant to be drinking slowly and to be tasting the wine and to be drinking. A bottle of wine was good company.

Ernest Hemingway

What time is too early to start drinking?

Does it make a difference if it is Christmas Day?

If a religious celebration means you can drink in the morning, I might just find God.

I will be promiscuous about religion, a deity slut. If all the Gods and their Prophets have a birthday and die or do something noteworthy there will be more days in the year for morning drinking.

Jesus, Mo, Brahma, Zeus, Thor, Yahweh… I will drink to them all. Sign me up.

I open a wine.

The scoring of the pork skin was traumatic. It is butchered, yet I am no butcher.

Ideally, the skin is cut and a few millimeters of fat.

I have hacked into the precious meat. Through the milky fat. At times, I had to put so much weight on the blunt knife I went all the way to the chopping board.

A glorious Mangalica fillet treated so poorly.

“For fuck sake Grant, just do the pork and stop your squealing. The pig didn’t make that much noise when they killed it”

Rachelle Griffin

The drama continues. Shell is not at all impressed that she is drinking an Albariño from Spain in Austria. It does not align with her drinking chakra.

She insists on opening a bottle of something more local. The only thing cold is the Kovács Nimród from Hungary. The wine I have set side for the pork.

She will not be swayed. I open the Kovács Nimród and pour her glass. Chakras aligned she is happy.

I push through the Albariño and wonder what we will drink with the pork.

“It was a joy! Words weren’t dull, words were things that could make your mind hum. If you read them and let yourself feel the magic, you could live without pain, with hope, no matter what happened to you.”

Charles Bukowski

I think part of the issue with my eye is sinus. We have a nasal spray from the pharmacy.

I am trying to use it and the fluid is running down my shirt and I cannot work out what is going on. Shell has the same issue.

We try and try until Shell realises the lid is still on.

I write this not because it is interesting. I put this down to remind me that religion is the source of morning drinking, which is not a good idea. As of tomorrow, I return to being an atheist.

“I think I need a drink.’
‘Almost everybody does only they don’t know it.”

Charles Bukowski

Dinner, or late lunch, is a success. Crackling on point.

We have opened a red and decided to just finish that with lunch rather than open the wine (the red wine, not the white Shell has already finished).

We settle into an afternoon of drinking by the fire.

I will make custard later and serve it with the strudel that was in the breakfast hamper this morning.

It is only early but I am done for the day. Too much food and too much wine.

We leave tomorrow for Croatia.

Tonight’s (today’s) wine –

2022 Bodegas Palacio de Fefiñanes Albariño de Fefiñanes (Rias Baixas)

This is an excellent Albariño despite Shell’s protests.

2021 Kovács Nimród SKY Furmint (Eger, Hungary)

From the famous Nagy Eged vineyard. Furmint handled with the care and resources of a world class Montrachet. Incredible wine.

2022 Vida Péter Bonsai Kadarka (Szekszárd, Hungary)

From 100 year old Kadarka grapes. Elegant and delicious. Excellent with the pork.

“some men never
die
and some men never
live

but we’re all alive
tonight.”

Charles Bukowski