Nothing doing

I am not going to write very much.

It is late, I have not been at work, and I am halfway down the second glass of wine.

I have had an exhausting day and a happy evening, and now I am absolutely longing to go to bed.

We should really have gone to work because we have spent all of our money,

Once we had finished the morning jobs and general tidying up today, we thought that we would properly start to get ready for Christmas.

We went shopping.

This took all day. We went to Kendal, and to Asda and bought sensible grown up things, like flour and coffee, and then we went to the Christmas tree man, and bought a Christmas tree, and then we came back to Windermere and bought an excess of very exciting things in the cash and carry wholesalers.

We have left the Christmas tree in the back of Mark’s taxi because it has a truly revolting smell of reindeer poo. Our friend who sells the Christmas trees keeps reindeer in his Christmas tree shed, in order to add a seasonal flavour to the proceedings and to make sure that everybody in Windermere who has a child under five buys their Christmas tree from him.

He promotes this by dressing up as an elf and hawking his reindeer around every school Christmas fair within about twenty miles of Windermere.

I admire him very much. He is a gloomy sort of elf but nobody is looking at him. They are looking at the reindeer, who are probably equally gloomy but nobody knows because they are reindeer. Certainly they smell horrible, and do not even benefit from a share of the profits.

We are going to leave the tree in the garden for a while and hope that things improve. Do not believe seasonal promotional material or advertisements for supermarkets. Reindeer are very smelly indeed. You would not want one leaving a deposit down your chimney.

Once we had purchased the Christmas tree and its attendant whiff, we came back to Windermere and bought things in the cash and carry shop.

This, I can assure you, was brilliant.

Every hotel and restaurant in the Lake District is supplied from here, and it is just across the road from our house. Whenever I go there I always wonder why I ever shop anywhere else, because it is magnificent.

They sell rice in sacks, and enormous boxes of wine, and dried fruit of every sort imaginable.

More than that, they sell every ingredient that every five star chef could possibly ever want. Every variety of mushroom, every exotic vegetable, every interesting cheese is to be found in their warehouse.

We bought lots of thrilling things.

We bought an enormous jar of tomatoes in oil, and oyster sauce, boxes of crispy mint chocolates, dried raspberries to add to my own chocolates, and huge boxes of the little pastry cases for canapés.

Regular readers might recall that we have recently had a happy experience with canapés, and you will not be at all surprised to learn that our next idea was to make our own. They are an ace addition to a diet, and I am dying to have a go.

Watch this space.

When we came home we unpacked and tidied up, and could not be bothered to go to work. This is one of the many reasons why proper employment has eluded me for so long. I suspect I might not quite have achieved the right mindset.

Instead we ate cheese and crackers in front of a series which you probably know, called A Game Of Thrones, and which is thrilling. We are watching Series Five, so if you know what happens next please do not tell us. We have watched these episodes before, but it was so long ago that we have forgotten.

I cannot tell you how blissful it felt, to curl up on a sofa which did not smell of dog, in a warm house, with interesting cheese, and a film. It is the first time for as long as I can remember that we have done absolutely nothing at all, and it was a joy. It feels just like Christmas now.

I am going to finish off my glass of wine and go to bed.

I have written loads after all.