Beating Boxing Day Boredom

What is it about Boxing Day? It's almost always dull as fuck and always feels like an anti-climax, no matter how bad Christmas was.

I've had flu for days and spent last night feeling ill. Considering it's Christmas that's not really how you want to spend the festive period now is it? Today I feel better but what is there to do? Do I 'go for a nice walk' or 'hit the sales' - two things I'd rather avoid if I'm honest.

Instead, here I am sitting in my living room with 'The Muppet Christmas Show' on TV (it's actually turning out to be quite entertaining - although it pains me to admit it) and wondering what to have for lunch - let's face it there's plenty of food left over from yesterday (in fact there's lots of stuff I never even opened and might go off if not dealt with soon).

Don't get me wrong - yesterday was a great Christmas Day. Quite unexpectedly.

Having opted for a Manchester Christmas instead of my usual London Christmas, I had been sure I'd be offered endless ways to spend the big day but it turned out most of my friends were off seeing family and even though I had an invite from a guy I've been seeing 'casually while he deals with his issues surrounding his ex', I wasn't sure that his friend who was hosting the dinner and is a friend of 'The Ex' would appreciate me turning up unannounced. And as I ended up catching a nasty cold from another friend last week, I was quite happy to sit at home and feel sorry for myself on Christmas Day.

Having spent Christmas Eve unable to sleep thanks to a block nose and painful sinuses, I nearly went to bed after spending the morning drinking glass after glass of Buck's Fizz - for medicinal purposes you understand - but thought I'd make the effort to pop a quick Christmas Card over to my friend's Gar and Alex before getting a little lie down.

To my surprise, they were in and cooking Christmas dinner for another friend, Jon. They asked if I'd like to stay and even though I'd already accepted my fate of being alone at home for Christmas, it was actually really lovely of them to ask and I gladly accepted. I rushed home and tarted myself up a bit and then went back round with some offerings of my own and settled in for a lovely meal and day's entertainment watching films that seemed to go on all day long and then Dr. Who (with Kylie guest starring fabulously).

After that I started to get aches and pains again so headed back across the car park to my flat to watch Eastenders and Corrie while slowly getting iller and iller. By the time To The Manor Born came on I was a shivering wreck and feeling as if I was about to die on Christmas Day.

However, after a sleeping pill and an extra blanket on the bed I've woken up feeling much better today and now I'm at a loss what to do with myself. If I were in London, then I'd be able to go to my friend Clive's Boxing Day party at his house - though I'm sure I'd end up with Colombian flu the following day after an evening of telling everyone how great they are and how much I appreciate them as friends. Or I could go and see Hairspray with my other friends Eric and Tom (if I could get a last minute extra ticket of course).

But no. I'm in Manchester under a weakly cloud covered sky watching The Muppet Christmas Show (which isn't now as good as it was when I said it was a minute ago).

At least tomorrow I have to get the train to London so that on Friday morning I can film the first bit of a Channel 5 programme I'm appearing in alongside Martin Lewis the money expert in January - so I can look forward to standing room only all the way to London and back again on Friday afternoon.

That still leaves me with the question - what the hell does a gay man in Manchester do with himself on Boxing Day? Well, if all else fails, once I've stopped watching The Muppets of course, there's always the rest of that bottle of port and some porn to keep me going I guess.