It has been a day of sticky things.
I am going to hurry up and write this and then go to bed.
I have not gone to work. Mark went, because he said that there was no point in both of us sitting about uselessly on the taxi rank when there was so much to be done here.
He turned out to be right. When I rang him a little while ago he said that he had been the only taxi and had had all four customers who have come to the taxi rank this evening.
Had I been there it would have been two each.
Instead I flapped about here.
It is almost upon us. We collect Oliver from school tomorrow and take Lucy to Blackpool for her course.
She does not come back then, the next time we see her will be in Manchester when we congregate there for the pantomime on Sunday.
All of our Christmas things have got to be done by then.
Whilst Mark was at work I made a large tray of fudge, and then occupied myself blending raspberries into the fondant. This is one of the stickiest jobs imaginable. I do not much like getting sticky. It makes my fingers twitch just thinking about it now.
I crushed the raspberries into the paste, added more and more sugar, and rolled and rolled, and eventually I had a large pink blob of raspberry fondant. I put this in a bowl and put it in the fridge, and tried not to think that it looked like the bit that you are meant to throw away after you have had a baby.
The thing about making chocolates for Christmas is that you have got to leave it until the last possible minute. You can’t make them weeks and weeks in advance, because chocolate made with fresh cream goes stale really quickly. This is nice, because it is ace to have fresh things, but always means a huge panic at the very last minute. No matter how organised I am, I will still finish up rushing about and swearing on Friday, when I do the chocolate bit.
Lucy goes tomorrow, and we have spent much of the day packing, for that and for our own departure on Sunday. I am having the usual annual fuss of remembering everybody’s swimming costumes and ties and nail clippers and phone chargers. Every now and again I think of something new, and either have to dash upstairs and pack it straight away, or write it down. If I do not do this then I will forget about it instantly, and then stand around helplessly for ages, trying uselessly to retrace my thoughts back to the moment of inspiration when I remembered that we had got to pack toothpicks and headache tablets.
Mark was not packing. Mark put his warm boiler suit on and went to faff about with the brakes on the camper van, which are misbehaving yet again. He does not know why they should be such a nuisance, and the weather is too unappealing for him to wish to dissect them and find out. It is not nice to lie about in the road when there are freezing puddles everywhere.
I was very glad to be a girl and not responsible for bashing mechanical things into submission. Lucy and I finished off all of our Christmas cards. We had already sent some yesterday, because of catching the date for foreign parts, but we still had all of the rest to do. They got more and more glittery as we went along, if your card is one of the very last on the list you might be sensible to open it over the rubbish bin. We went through the address book in order, I think Dr. Worgan is likely to be the unlucky one.
Also I am not entirely sure that all of the glue had dried on all of them. If we have messed this up expect your card to be stuck to the inside of the envelope.
Lucy bathed the dogs, who are going to stay with some friends when we go away at weekend, and who did not smell at all the way you might appreciate in your house guests. The problem is their passionate interest in each other’s wee. They are so keen not to miss any of this that they quite often get in the way at the important moment, and finish up wearing some of it.
We are going in the morning. We will not be back until late tomorrow night, and then we have got three days to do everything else.
I am just about getting to the bit where it is all right to feel excited.
We are jolly nearly ready now.
