Alas, another greatly shortened post due to the intoxicated incapacity of your diarist.
I have had such a lovely day.
We got up really late and ran around flapping and shoving last minute things in bags for ages, then Mark went to the farm to get the camper, in which we were supposed to be travelling, but then called me ten minutes later to tell me that it had broken down.
This meant that we had got to go in the car. I didn’t mind this very much because the camper van is noisy and slow and difficult to park, and although it has the enormous and obvious advantage that we can sleep in it, we were staying at the Midland, so it didn’t matter as much as you might think,
In the end we got to the Midland at about two.
The Midland is the most beautiful, dignified, gorgeous hotel. It is right in the centre of the city, just across the road from the Christmas markets, and it is ace in every way. In the centre of the lobby is an enormous Christmas tree, and there was a big wedding going on in some of the reception rooms, which was lovely, red carpets and beautiful girls, and crop-headed men looking slightly uncertain of themselves in dress suits.
After a great deal of unloading and messing about we found a sofa in the lounge, and after a while we were joined by everybody else, a few at a time. This was just brilliant. The girls are all mid-teens, and the boys are all at the hooligan age, and they all buzzed off together to do their own things, the boys to have Nerf gun wars up and down the lobby and the stairs, the girls to talk about Japanese cartoons, and the grown ups to drink wine and suddenly relax, because Christmas has arrived.
i am afraid we relaxed a lot. We had dinner at a lovely Turkish restaurant on Deansgate, and more wine, and more relaxing.
I am now so very relaxed and contented I can hardly see to write. We have laughed and drunk too much, and my family are here, my grandson is here, and my friends are either here or coming tomorrow, and apart from the absence of Number Two Daughter who is living it up on a Japanese mountain, my life is perfect.
I think it is the bad influence of Number One Son-In-Law. He kept topping my glass up.
It is such a shame I am going to have a hangover in the morning.
Otherwise life is perfect.
