Fake Ducks and Boxing Day

Such was the level of excitment in our house yesterday (Season 5, 24, a few heart attacks and one or two "didn't that already happen in Season X?), that we started a new game - is the duck in the neighbours garden real. For those of you that have been around, it's the (one) neighbour we don't really like (old guy, always drunk, likes to wander onto your property, or into your party, without permissions and purely coz he can't bear to be unaware of anything going on in the neighbourhood). There was a duck sitting there last night, and we couldn't work out if it was real or fake - it was sitting kind of still, but it wasn't covered in snow like everything else in the street. Anyway, after much watching, and scheming to find out ways we could work it out without wandering throught he snow (duck whistle, paint ball gun etc were all discussed), we went to bed. Now, mystery solved - Heidi threw a rock at it this morning (alledgedly) and it didn't move. It's a rock hard, real brave real duck. Or fake.

Oh, and lots of people in the office asked what Boxing Day was, given I refused to work that day even though it's not a real holiday over here - finally found some info from Heather's site (I don't know her, her site just popped up when I searched for it).

Boxing Day goes back in time to when the working class gave boxes of food and fruit to tradespeople and servants the day after Christmas as a token of appreciation of their work over the years. Its similar to the modern day practice of giving tips or gifts to doormen, your delivery service or anyone else that provides a service.