I am feeling very pleased with myself.
You would jolly well get lots of rubies if you sold me, and probably more than that.
I am the most virtuous wife in the house.
I have made our mince pies.
I have made a really lot of mince pies. I baked six trays of a dozen each, and then made a further three dozen to put in the freezer for when Mark has eaten the first ones. This might not take as long as you would expect, because he had almost eaten the first dozen before I had even finished making them, and then he did not want his dinner.
After that I made an apple pie, because I am just too virtuous for words.
I had already made chocolate tiffin and raspberry fudge. Imagine virtue on that sort of scale.
We need to have a fridge full of very nice things to eat, because we are going on holiday tomorrow and I want to take them all with us. There is no point in going on holiday and eating the same boring rubbish that you eat all the rest of the time.
We are going to have a short but happy holiday heading north to collect Oliver.
I am looking forward to seeing him very much.
Oliver does not eat mince pies, but that will not matter, because Mark eats enough for both of them.
I have eaten one so far, which was quite enough. The fruit bit in the middle is made of dried pineapple and cherries and papaya and mango, which has been soaking in Asda’s Own Brand Budget Brandy for the last year. They are not quite as alcoholic as usual because the fruit has only been soaking for a year instead of two, and some of it has not even been soaking for that long, because it turned out to be especially nice, and so we ate lots of it in fruit cakes, and then I had to replace it with more dried fruit and another bottle of brandy.
The brandy is so cheap it comes in a plastic bottle. I do not think that I would like to try and drink it, but it is very good when it is filled with fruit.
In wealthier days I used to drink actual cognac, which is exactly like brandy only costs an extra tenner. We are not wealthy any more but I do not mind, except when I think about it.
It was all the most colossal faff about. Making mince pies takes absolutely ages, and I was aching and covered in flour by the time I had finished. Mark has offered to rub my back for me when he comes back from emptying the dogs, but I do not think that I will let him. Mark does not think that there is any point in massage if the person he is massaging is not yelling in agony and requesting that he desist. He has never grasped the concept of a Relaxation Massage.
He did not go to work today, because we are already having our Christmas holiday. Obviously it will not last from now until Christmas, we are going to go back to work next week. It is a sort of advertising trailer for the Christmas holidays, giving us a small hint of technicolour joys which are yet to come.
It has been a brilliant holiday. I woke up feeling excited about it, which made up a bit for us having overslept.
Mark sawed up firewood in the garden and plastered up a hole in the wall, and ate mince pies.
It was just lovely to be pottering about together. We drank lots of tea and talked about things, and met up with the Peppers, and generally felt contented with our world.
Eventually we finished everything and cleared up and ended the day with some ethical shopping at Booths to take with us on our holiday.
We have got ethical salmon and ethical blue cheese and ethical smoked cheese and some reduced price ethical pigs in blankets, because Oliver likes those. Lots of things were reduced, because it was nine o’clock at night and all the staff were looking sleepy and wishing that we would buzz off back home. The lodger told me that they reduced prices like this when she came to visit the other day, but I had forgotten all about it until we got there and it turned out to be true.
Tomorrow we are going to go on holiday. We can eat blue cheese and mince pies and listen to the Lord Of The Rings on the camper van radio.
Life is jolly very good, I can tell you.
