Unseasonable Plans

I have been unseasonably planning Christmas.

This has made me an object of ridicule amongst friends and family alike.

However, as it happens I have got to give evidence in a court case in December and I have had a letter from the police asking me to name any dates when I will not be available, along with a not-terribly-veiled threat that if Her Majesty’s Courts of Justice were in any way inconvenienced due to my lack of organisation, lack of attendance, or other similar failings, they would view the matter in an exceedingly dim light.

Not wishing to get a mention in the Queen’s Speech for being a public liability and holding up the Due Process Of Law I had a bit of a concerned think about what I might be doing in December. It was a lovely thought, even with the daffodils still out in the garden and flip-flops just starting to come on sale in the shops.

What we always do at Christmas is the pantomime. Originally this started out as a family outing, until it turned out that none of my family actually like going to pantomimes, and over the years it has metamorphosised into a riot attended by us and our friends, and a few family members, who all do like going to pantomimes, very much indeed, especially when well tanked up on champagne and Chinese food. We sit in the circle and shout loudly and cheer the hero and boo at the evil magician, and drink more champagne out of plastic mugs and have the most enormously good time.

However this meant that I would have to make a decision about when we were actually going to go to the pantomime, since I do the organising, and that was when things got difficult. I thought that we might go on either Friday or Monday, the week before Christmas, and started to call people to see what they were doing.

Without fail when I said I was planning Christmas they all laughed. Most of them said: “Umm, I’ll get back to you before October,” and were vague. Mark rolled his eyes and said just to do the most expensive thing I could think of, since that was probably what would happen in the end, and some people didn’t appreciate the urgency and answer their phones because tiresomely they were out.

In the end I booked it for the Friday and called everybody back and told them what I had done in a sort of fait accompli.

Then I called the hotel to book that and discovered that staying there on Thursday and Friday would cost roughly five hundred pounds more than staying there on Sunday and Monday.

I called the theatre and re-booked for Monday. I added four seats to the booking for my sister, who had been vague due to end of term times and being a responsible parent on the Friday. She wasn’t answering her mobile, because she didn’t seem to think that making her Christmas arrangements was at all urgent when all she was doing was collecting the children from school, getting dinner ready, having her house completely rebuilt and being a G.P. in between times. Honestly, and it’s nearly halfway through April already.

She called me back after I had booked it and made weary-but-trying-not-to-be-irritated sort of noises and politely requested that I leave her out of any and all my Christmas arrangements however wonderful they might be as she was fully occupied with an under-five and a stroppy teenager and trying to do housework with a wheelbarrow and shovel and running morning surgeries, and it was not high on her priority list.

I called the theatre back and changed the booking.

I called Mark and asked that he called his sister who might be staying in the hotel with us to see if it would be all right with her.

She was out.

I called Number One Daughter, who said: “For goodness’ sake, Mum, just book it and give me the bill,”

I called the hotel who said that I had the choice of Superior Twin Rooms with a Mr. Cooper’s Breakfast, or Interconnecting Double and Superior Twin Rooms, or interconnecting Superior Double and Twin Rooms, and I could have those with a Wyvern Breakfast or a Mr. Cooper’s Breakfast, or a Double and Twin Room with a Wyvern Breakfast, and I didn’t know what I wanted, never mind what everybody else wanted, so I called Mark for advice, who said: “Ask which costs most. It will save you the trouble of upgrading when you get there.”

I didn’t call the hotel back.

I didn’t get round to calling everybody else back to tell them that date had changed.

I looked at the letter from the Witness Care Unit, thought hard about it for a minute, and carefully wrote down: “December 18th – January 1st”, and then where it said Reason For Unavailability: Busy.

Then I went downstairs for a glass of wine.

I was pleased with this conclusion.

I hope Her Majesty understands.