I have become most terrifically flappy.
I do not seem to be able to organise anything, and I keep waking up in the chill darkness in the middle of the night, worrying about it all.
I am trying hard not to be in a worried state, because really there isn’t anything to worry about. The problem is that the part of my brain that still belongs to a monkey is entirely convinced that there is. In the absence of anything actually worrying, like sabre-toothed tigers or charging mammoths, it is making scary things up to compensate.
They are not even interesting scary things, like werewolves or alien invasion.They are very dull scary things, like the council tax and affording to renew Oliver’s passport.
Neither should be waking me up in the night, gasping for air and shuddering. This is a very definite misuse of the fight or flight response, and I am disappointed in my chimpanzee self.
I suspect a real chimpanzee would not be remotely worried about the council tax. Neither would a properly rational human, because either we will have sufficient cash to pay it, or we won’t, and the council will not care, merely send us an unfriendly letter with which I will light the fire. The difficulty comes when you have an ill-balanced combination of the two, chimp and sapiens, wrestling for control, like the French President and Boris over the mackerel.
I suspect that really the problem is that everything is different from a normal December. Like the dogs, who get very anxious when we go the wrong way around the park, I do not at all like the different and unpredictable.
December has gone all wrong, and is full of wrongness. All of the things we would usually do are not going to happen, or they are happening at the wrong time, or they have got other worrying things attached to them.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. It is Boris’ fault.
I suppose that is better than it being Mark’s fault.
This time last year our glorious leader was filmed being jolly and making mince pies. I bet he doesn’t make any this year. He is too busy with the aforementioned squabble with the French over the fishing.
I have not been following it all, but somebody who is has explained it to me. Boris is cross with the French because they cannot agree how to split the stuff that comes out of the Channel. The French want a fifty fifty divide, in which they keep the fish and we keep the Syrians.
This made me laugh but does not excuse Boris, in my opinion, for not allowing pubs to be open for drinking on New Year’s Eve, even though he has just spent billions of pounds on anti bat-flu injections.
That is like giving somebody a Playstation for Christmas but telling them that they are only allowed to play Snap until the summertime.
New Year’s Eve usually pays all of our bills for January.
I have just had some customers in my taxi whose restaurant meal was interrupted by the police popping in to check what they were eating, and to make sure that it was sufficiently substantial to justify allowing them to have a glass of wine.
The outrage had given them indigestion. They were not usually big drinkers but drank a double whisky to get over it.
They were still very cross.
Despite the endless financial crisis, and the argument with the chimp, and the Government’s determination to protect us all from our wickedly sociable and alcoholic selves, I think that we are managing to keep our heads above water. We are still plodding towards Christmas, although it is a bit dogged, rather than joyful, this year.
We decorated our Christmas tree today. This was considerably quicker than usual, although a little wistful, because of the absence of Lucy and her decorations. I was not exactly sorry, because for the first time in ages there was room on the tree for everything we wanted to put there, and also it means that I will be able to continue my collection of beautiful, and inevitably costly, decorations with a completely clear conscience.
Not this year because there is no Christmas market. I suppose I had better put the money towards the council tax instead.
The picture is a teenage boy who has come home to a house with an enormous cinema screen. He is appreciating it very much indeed.
He can work it and everything. He told it to play us some Christmas carols whilst we hung chocolate on the tree, and it did it, just like that.
It is a splendid world.
I just need to remind my inner chimp.
