Tonight I am truly excited and happy about Christmas.
This doesn’t sound like all that much of a surprise, but actually, it is the first time during the last couple of months of this whole dreary bat-flu pantomime that I have felt really contented: actually happy instead of just Keeping My Chin Up and Making The Best Of Things.
The wonderful secret to this outburst of spontaneous happiness is that we are about to do some wicked law breaking.
For those of you who have taken to heart our beloved leader’s encouragement to snitch on people, by the time you are reading this it will be too late and I will have done it, and also everybody knows that this is a complete work of fiction and I wouldn’t dream of doing anything so wicked, so yah boo sucks to the lot of you.
Elspeth and John and their family are coming for a Christmas Eve dinner, even though it will not be legal until tomorrow.
They do this every year, and we have had to do without so many lovely things we decided that we would not do without this one.
We are not going to see any other family over Christmas, except Lucy of course, so we thought that if the police came we would just pretend that we had got the day wrong.
I have just spoken to Lucy. She is on her way home very soon, as soon as she has finished at the police station, and for the first time this year I felt a glow of happiness starting to spark in my soul.
The world is all right. Our house is warm and beautiful. We have decorated the conservatory with coloured lights and laid the table with fruit and cheese and salads, and there is an apple pie and bread rolls, and some special Christmas sausages cooking in the oven.
Google has helpfully set an alarm for me to tell me when they will be ready, and is singing Do They Know It’s Christmas to himself, quietly, in the television downstairs.
I have got a gorgeous candle flavoured with Jim Beam and maple syrup, which was my Christmas present from me. It is sitting on my desk, and every now and again I take the lid off it and breathe in the thick woody scent. It is not lit. It is waiting for me to start writing a book instead of going to work in January. I will light it and drink spiced tea and think creative thoughts.
My parents have paid the school fees, and Mark has paid the mortgage. Oliver is laughing about something in his bedroom upstairs. Next to him Lucy’s bedroom is still empty, waiting for her to come home, but it has been freshly painted in gentle shades of grey and pink, and feels clean and pretty.
Mark is getting dressed in our bedroom, in the soft new clothes that we have been treasuring for this moment for months and months. The little Parisian oil lamp is lit in the bedroom, filling the landing with the lovely amber and vanilla smell that reminds us all of holidays in Disneyland.
Elspeth has telephoned to tell me that she has got a bottle of champagne, and I have made some slabs of peppermint chocolate to have with coffee at the end of the night.
We have taken the dogs out and gazed at the snow on the fells. We have cooked and tidied and talked and we have got Oliver home, and by tomorrow we will have Lucy. Number One Daughter rang a little while ago. Her hard-working husband is home from his oil rig. Tonka has gone back south with him, and they are all together and safe in their little house. The Number Two Daughters are working hard in Canada. Mrs. Number Two Daughter has knitted us the most magnificent table mats for a Christmas present, which they sent to us with some Canadian coffee and some cranberry jam. The table mats are on the table now, I am quite sure that even the Queen does not have anything so lovely.
I have made chicken in lime and coriander sauce, and peppery Cumberland sausage, and new potatoes cooked with olive oil and tomatoes. The smells are drifting up the stairs, and any minute they will be here.
Have a picture of Windermere this morning.
