When Tonka was sick in the yard yesterday Mark discovered an entire Christmas tree lolly in it, wrapper still attached to the stick.
Our dogs have learned the art of unwrapping Christmas plunder, but poor Tonka, so far, has not. I suspect that he was so anxious about losing such a prize that he wolfed the lot, stick and all, before anybody could leap on him and deprive him of it.
I would not do such a dreadful thing, but Roger Poopy would not hesitate.
Poor Tonka. He is settled down to his incarceration with us, in a resigned sort of way, but he keeps sighing heavily and looking at the door in case anybody is going to come and rescue him, which they are not.
I have had such a busy day that it was six o’clock this evening before I remembered that I ought to do something about getting some breakfast.
I have been wrapping Christmas presents.
I have made lots of stuff for giving to people for Christmas, and today was the day for ‘presentation is half of the battle’.
This is such an unassailable truth. When we go to places like the House of Bruar I am tempted into longing for all sorts of pointless junk that I can make myself easily as well and often better. The thing is that if it comes in a pretty jar with a tasteful green-and-gold label and a ribbon and some etched-on stars, then I am sunk.
Of course the problem is that this half of the battle takes an extraordinary amount of tiddling about, and regrettably I lost it in the end.
This was not because I did not have sufficient resources, or tasteful ideas. On the contrary, I have got ideas coming out of my ears, and a tin full of different shades of glitter and seasonal colours of ribbon. What I ran out of in a massive sort of way, was time.
I do not know where the day went.
I knew I would be busy and so I started at a run. I had got the bread maker refilled and the laundry on the go before Mark had even buzzed off to work. Then once the dogs were empty I started in earnest.
The day slipped past.
Everything needed to be posted today. The last posting day for Christmas is not until Monday, but there was a shock-horror-panic sort of article in the Daily Telegraph with graphic pictures of piles of undelivered mail and postmen struggling to dig out tunnels underneath it. Bat flu, they explained, has meant that we have stayed at home and posted our Christmas surprises instead of delivering them in person.
We are doing exactly that, how like the rest of the common herd we have turned out to be.
The Post office, the august Telegraph added grimly, has buckled under the strain, and if you want things to arrive In Time, you had jolly well better get your finger out.
Having just had some agonies over late-arriving Advent calendars, I took this to heart.
The last post today was at half past four.
By three o’clock I was flapping around the conservatory, stuck up everywhere with Sellotape and parcel tape and crumpled brown paper and string. The swearing and sobbing became so pronounced that Oliver appeared from his bedroom on the second floor to see what on earth was the matter.
He is his father’s son.
He swept the first swaying stack of parcels into a couple of bags and took them to the post office, which meant that I could see out over the top of the table again. When he came back he brought the glad news that the last post was delayed until a quarter past five, at which information I almost wept with relief.
He is inexpert at wrapping things up, but helped anyway after that.
I would quite like to blame him for the results, but I can’t. If you get a parcel from us that looks as though it has been crushed through a mangle and then liberally sprayed with Sellotape, it could have been either of us, or more likely both of us, one at either end of the roll of Sellotape. We wrapped and knotted and swore. I cut my finger on the little knife and after that had to be careful not to get blood all over the place. Bloodstains are not an attractive presentational feature of gift-wrapping.
By five minutes past five we had another mountain of teetering cardboard boxes. We dumped loads of them in bags and carried armfuls more, and belted off to the post office.
I handed over my bank card and said that I just didn’t care what they did with it.
When we got back the house was utterly trashed.
Cardboard and wrapping paper and string and parcel tape and clutter was strewn everywhere. The fire had gone out and the dinner was not ready, and the wet washing was still crumpled forlornly in the basket.
We tidied up, slowly. Then Oliver went back upstairs and I remembered breakfast.
It is done.
Christmas cards next.
Have a picture of the last few things. These did not go in the post. They are going to be delivered by me, which is why they were still here when I was flapping about just now trying to find something topical for a photograph.
