We are almost at the end of the Christmas Card Manufacturing project, which is just as well because we have run out of card.
The last sheets are humming through the printer as I speak. The problem is not that we have got hundreds of friends, but that I didn’t buy enough card and now it is too late. We have just about managed it, I think, it is a bit difficult to tell at the moment. Some people might have to have an economy version, on paper. If it is you I can’t even think of a decent excuse. It is most likely to be you if your surname starts with Z. Sorry.
It is the middle of the night, we have not been to work, and we are about to go to bed. We got up early this morning to dispatch Oliver for a haircut, and because of having a flap about everything that needed to be done before we depart for our party on Thursday.
We are having a very busy pre-Christmas flap.
The flapping was enlivened by Number One Daughter calling this morning to let us know that she and her branch of the family are coming to stay for the weekend. Obviously I was pleased about this, it is always nice when one’s departed chicks make a reappearance. At least, I was pleased until I remembered the mess that we had made in the spare bedroom in the loft.
I went rushing up to have a look, and it turned out to be even worse than I remembered. This was because we had moved some extra chairs downstairs, in anticipation of festive guests. They had been hidden in the loft behind a huge pile of other things, and Mark had gone up to dig them out the other day.
You will not be surprised to learn that he had not thought to go back upstairs after he had brought the chairs down, and carefully put all of the huge pile of other things back where he had found them.
Oliver came to help, and we had an industrious half an hour stacking boxes and bags on top of one another. They are up there because I am not expecting to use them in the near future, they are things like the jam jars ready for next autumn, and my gym kit ready for the next time my trousers get too tight.
In the end the loft was restored to a reasonably acceptable state, and we made the beds up and left the door open so that it would dry out properly. It is not exactly wet, not by the standards of all the rest of the intermittently-flooded house anyway, but it has not been used for ages, and there was an ominous hint of black mould smell in the air. We opened windows and lit fires and wafted fresh air through, and we thought that it did not seem too bad.
The lodger called in for coffee just as I had finished. I was very pleased indeed about this, because of the golden opportunity it offered to get on with the ironing. It is boring just to stand about and flatten things. It is far nicer when somebody is there to provide company and interesting gossip.
We had several mugs of coffee, and I made all of our carol-service clothes and Oliver’s school uniform respectably flat. I was glad about this. It is a nuisance to have a cupboard full of things that one is too idle to iron.
Oliver appeared from the gloomy depths of his boy-cave, newly shorn and tidy, and was obliged to participate in the flapping. His job was to fasten strings to the kilo of lollies purchased for the purpose, and then to hang them on the already-overloaded Christmas tree. He did a remarkably good job, it took ages, but of course any production line always has its share of failures, and some of the strings turned out to be a bit loose.
The dogs have added fallen lollies to their increasingly unsuitable diet. If they get through Christmas without getting diabetes they will be doing very well.
Everybody knows that if something lands on the floor it belongs to the dog.
Have a picture of Windermere.
