How Sez Sees It

How early is too early for putting up your decorations? When are you allowed to go around listening to Christmas songs? There are many factors at play and, of course, it is a personal thing. For me I have never been a fan of Christmas before December (and I am writing this on 30 November). I am very much a one for celebrating Christmas, but November feels too early. My birthday falls in mid-November and this has something to do with the way I feel I am sure. When I look around at all the decorations and adverts for Christmas and I still haven't blown out my candles I think it is too early by far. Now, I know there are people who have their birthdays in December and they have more right to feel like that than I do (I know several people born on Christmas Eve...what was happening nine months before???), but my point is that mid-November is just too early. However, when I was living at home my Dad used to get one of the fibre optic Christmas trees out on my birthday every year. Ye...

It is said that you don't truly know another person until you live with them. I have spent a lot of time with le fiance before we moved in together but there are still some things about him that I didn't know or I have noticed since we moved in together. 1. He talks to himself... ...a lot! He is always mumbling away to himself. I think this is how he gets through the day. He explains processes to himself (e.g. what to cook when or what order to hoover the house). 2. He has his own jokes We will be sat watching TV or just walking down the street and then something pops into his head that makes him laugh. He will just randomly burst out laughing. 3. He has an evil sense of humour I never realised just how dark his humour could be until we started living together and I was exposed to it more during the day (well, weekends and evenings anyway). 4. His confidence has grown There is no way that he is the same person I knew before we moved in. The move out of his paren...

I worked out yesterday that I probably saw more of my fiance for general fun (not that you dirty people) than I do now. We see each other every day now but we are always doing something like housework or shopping. Stuff for the house seems to take up all our spare time together. When we are not doing stuff together he wants to go and play on his computer. I decided to implement something I thought was a little tacky at first...date night! I know other people have them and I always thought, before we were living together, that this was a tacky idea and I would not really want to do that. Now I see why they are so important. The sort of lives people live today make spending time with their partner really difficult. We are all connected to our jobs too much and we all spend too much time glued to our computers and mobiles. Even when we are in the same room we have the TV on and yet we are both on our separate mobiles flicking through Facebook or whatever. I decided that we would hav...

My fiance and I are celebrating our first Christmas together this year (awwww). We took the decision not to see our individual families this year on the big day and instead spend it with one another. There are many reasons for this besides wanting to spend it alone for the first time ever. We didn't want a fight. We didn't see that it would be fair to either side if we saw one and not the other. We will visit my parents on Christmas Eve and Dave's parents on Boxing Day when we see the rest of his family as per tradition. We didn't want to travel. Dave's parents are two minutes down the road and mine are 20 minutes down the road but that isn't really the point. I know that is no distance at all but quite frankly neither of us can be arsed and we just want a relaxing day sat around eating and drinking and watching shit TV. This is the first time we will have seen each other on Christmas day in four years! The last four times his Mum wouldn't let him visi...

The other day I was talking to someone I work with. In the past this person has been a lecturer and used to teach students from the USA when they came to Britain to study. He told me the following: "I used to say to them imagine this. There is a country where there are two house of government. One, the higher house, is not elected and many of the posts are hereditary. The other house is elected but the person in charge could get there by only having a minority of the overall votes. Both houses are accountable to an unelected head of state who is also the head of the nation's church." The students were then asked which country they thought this was. Many would answer that they believed it was somewhere in the Middle East or Africa. The reality is that this is modern day Britain. Yes, in 2015 we have an unelected monarch with half our Government (The House of Lords) unelected too. This has been the system for hundreds of years. Most of our system owes a lot to Victori...

I was horrified when I was in my first year of university and I was told to argue against Rememberance services. The idea was that my side should say that it had been nearly 100 years and we would only repeat the mistakes if we remember. I refused to do that and asked to switch to a different group. The reason for me is that the information I was given and the instructions I was given were not good enough for me to want to argue that point. To me rememberance is about those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the Great War and WWII. It is about remembering those who have done the same in global conflicts since. This is why I choose to wear a poppy each year, take part in rememberance services and give to the Royal British Legion every month. I have mentioned before that my Grandad benefitted from the help of the Legion. His story was incredible. He was conscripted in WWII and worked in logistics. All of his brothers were also in the army and his youngest brother died at the age of...

Gunpowder, treason and plot.' So goes the old rhyme. This weekend there will be many a firework display (weather permitting) up and down the country, but why? In 1605 a plot was uncovered which, if successful, would have seen Parliament and King James I (VI of Scotland), blown up. The plot was to be undertaken by a rebel group of provincial Catholics who were led by Robert Catesby. The idea was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening on 5 November and this would kickstart revolt in the Midlands. James I's (VI's) daughter would be installed as a Catholic Head of State. The full list of plotters were: John and Christopher Wright Thomas and Robert Wintour Thomas Percy Robert Keys Thomas Bates John Grant Ambrose Rookwood Sir Everard Digby Frances Tresham Guido (Guy) Fawkes The most famous of the plotters today, after more than 400 years, is Guy Fawkes. Why is it we remember him over the others? Many of us remember building a 'Guy...

Admit it, how many of us have done this? You have an ache or pain or you struggle to breathe one day and you Google your symptoms. The trouble is that if you do that some symptoms can be for more than one illness. For example, if you have a tight feeling in your chest and you have recently been ill it could be a chest infection or asthma or anything really. There is no way of telling unless you visit a doctor. Now, I am just as guilty of doing this as anyone else. I come from a long line of hypochondriacs and we are all dying of something all the time (according to us at least). In the last couple of weeks I have been genuinely ill. I have had a stomach bug and I have lost my appetite. Ok, so it is coming back now, but it was a horrible thing and I am not the only person to have had it in recent weeks. The trouble is that I have had other things wrong as part of it. I haven't been able to catch my breath and I have had dizzy spells. Don't worry, I have now been to the doctor ...