I am going to go to bed at any minute.
I am so tired I can hardly see to write.
We have had the busiest of busy days.
We have walked for miles and miles around Manchester. We have thoroughly inspected the Christmas markets and bought cheese and olives and nuts and a sort of Greek honey cake.
I have bought a watch on a chain, in case the prison service would ever like me to rejoin them. You can’t take mobile phones into a prison, so I can’t tell the time like that, and I can’t wear an actual watch that goes on my wrist, because I am allergic to nickel.
Nickel is in almost everything. This is a tiresome nuisance which means I have either got to wear very expensive jewellery or else coat everything in nail varnish. Even the studs in jeans make me itch so badly that I finish up scratching like a stray dog. Belt buckles do it, the hooks in bra straps do it, and when Mark and I went shopping to buy wedding rings, the thing that they use to measure your finger made mine swell up until it looked like a small purple balloon, and not at all the sort of thing that you might feel romantically inclined towards.
Today we bought a funny little watch that can be fastened to my belt. It is a clock with proper numbers on it, none of this confusing Roman numeral business, and it is shaped like an owl. When you press its ears its wings spring open and you can see the clock underneath. I have spent ages playing with this today. I like it very much.
Mark and I bought coconut macaroons and ate them whilst we walked round. They were ace. I have not had them before. They were hot from the oven, and crispy on the outside and steaming hot and sticky inside. Then we had coffee with Number One Daughter and Number One Son-In-Law in the Royal Exchange, where a ladies’ choir was singing Christmas carols.
After that we had enormous smoked sausages for lunch, and ate them in front of the Town Hall.
We needed a little snooze then.
After our snooze we all went swimming in the hotel pool. This is a sophisticated sort of affair where they do not encourage children until after five o’ clock. I approve of this. I would have been very cross indeed if I had been in there and somebody had been making the sort of racket that we did. Mark and I were sharks and beat the children up whilst they splashed and shrieked and jumped in and out. It was not in the least ambient or restorative the way it is in the advertising brochure, at least not for anybody else.
Afterwards Ritalin Boy tried to shut himself in his locker with his clothes and had to be hauled out, and then Mark obliged him to wash his hair, so there were more squeaks, and some violence in the changing rooms.
We rounded the day off with a trip to the cinema. We went to see the new Harry Potter film, which does not have Harry Potter in it, and which I thought was completely incomprehensible. Mark said that this was because I had forgotten what happened in the first one, which was true, I had not known that it would be important to remember.
Anyway, I liked the exciting special effects but would have liked a more interesting story. If you have not been to see it it is probably not really spoiling anything to tell you that it is about a wizard who wants world domination. I am glad that I am not a wizard. We do not seem to have any politicians who want world domination. Even the negotiating chap who does not want us to leave Brussels does not revenge himself by summoning dragons and trying to set everybody on fire, at least not so far.
We are back in the Midland now.
The children are asleep, and Mark is reading next to me.
I have got a good book on my bedside table.
I will see you tomorrow.
