Today I have booked our Christmas dinner.
I was sitting next to the lake in the July sunshine when it occurred to me that getting round to something like that already would be a very grown up and organised Thing To Do.
We always eat our Christmas dinner in an hotel, because I am too idle to want to spend my Christmas Day doing endless cooking and washing up, and because it is so very lovely to be waited on and eat splendid things that I would never dream of cooking. Also then we can all have what we want even if everyone wants something different, and we don’t have an enormous pile of leftover sprouts that I have cooked for the children and that they have refused to touch. I had lamb with cranberry and orange for last year’s dinner. It was beyond all superlatives and melted in my mouth. I am just not that good a cook.
It turned out that it was a good thing that I booked it, because they only had a couple of slots left. They remembered us anyway, presumably because of the riot with Ritalin Boy last year, but still took the booking, which was a surprise. Also the girl who took the booking appeared to have some sort of fond memory of Number One Son-In-Law, which I thought better not to discuss, as I seem to recall we drank rather a lot last year. Anyway, I booked it and felt very organised and pleased with myself, all I have got to do now is save up some money to pay for it.
Apart from that it has been a very busy day.
After the school runs we dashed excitedly over to the allotment with some buckets and a wheelbarrow and spent a couple of hours shifting stones and being happily supercilious about the previous tenant. After that Mark went off to the farm to glue some more tin on to the camper van and I had a lovely half hour in the library.
I got a book out about allotments, and the librarian told me all about somebody that she knew in Ambleside library who had an allotment, and we shared a joint satisfaction in all things allotmenty for a few minutes. I also got a book out about forensic science although she didn’t ask me if I had got a dead body.
After that I went to work, and at teatime we all went swimming again, which was ace, there was a really grumpy lady who thought we were splashing about too much and being a nuisance. She was quite right, and we told her that if she didn’t like it she should come back after seven when we wouldn’t be allowed, and a Scottish man told Mark secretly in the showers afterwards that he thought she was a miserable old boot, which she was.
I am a miserable old boot as well, and loathe finding children in the swimming pool because they are vile and noisy and splash and get in the way, so I never go until seven o’clock after which point they have all got to Go Home, and jolly good riddance. That way nobody ever finds out what a miserable old boot I am and Scottish men do not say derogatory things about me in the showers as far as I know.
After that I went back to work, which is a bit tiresome at this time of year, because people keep wanting to get in the taxi and go to places, and keep interrupting my various interesting taxi occupations such as reading my library books and chatting to people on the phone. I chatted to Number One Daughter again tonight, who thought we might enjoy having Ritalin Boy for a day or two in a couple of weeks but warned me that I was not to write in my online diary that he was a tiresome pain and that I was bravely and helpfully looking after him. She explained that he is a dear little poppet and I am his grandmother and we all enjoy doing these family things together, and also that I dumped Lucy on her the whole time when she was a teenager. I assured her that I would not, and that I was really looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with my grandson and could she please send him for a fortnight because I miss him when he is not here and love all children very much.
In any case Lucy will be home then. I can just go out to work.
