Hello and a very merry Christmas to you.
We are having the most splendid Christmas, and I think I can safely say that I am so full of good cheer that it is practically bubbling out of the top of my head.
I have just taken a quiet five minutes to write to you at the end of the day. Oliver and Mark are downstairs, and it has gone relatively quiet because they are both immersed in their new books. Oliver has got a graphic novel about a world in which all men have died off except one. I am not looking at the pictures. It might be worrying for a person of my age.
Mark has got a book called A Pictorial History of Tractors. He is also gripped. One of the reasons I have retreated to write to you at this moment is because I have declined to have any more fascinating little gems of tractor-related trivia read out to me.
Men are peculiar creatures.
We have had some splendid Christmas presents. Mark has got a de Walt tool of some description. He says it is called a Jiggler, or something similar, but even having looked at it I cannot tell what it is supposed to do. He has spent ages fastening different bits to the end of it, and making admiring noises, so it must be good.
Oliver has got a new coat and some cash. He likes the coat very much, and wandered around in it for ages before eventually overheating and having to take it off. It is a woollen overcoat, and looks splendid, he has become very grown up.
I have got a very pretty soft jumper, the colour of ripe apricots and very fluffy. We have got some new jigsaws, and an unexpected picture of Oliver, aged about one, which made us all sigh with reminiscence.
I think the happiest Christmas is being had by the dogs. My cousin has sent them some rubber balls which squeak, and some dog treats. I do not know what is in the dog treats, but I have never seen their eyes become so round with pleading, they are a huge hit, probably it is cocaine or something.
Roger Poopy has been banished to the kitchen with the rubber balls, because they make him bark and bounce around. It took him ages to work out how to get the squeak to work, and he took them under the coffee table where he stared hard at them, and whimpered excitedly until one of us gave in and squeaked them for him. Once he got the hang of it he was so excited that he banged his head on the table. All the same, he was very pleased with himself, and is lying at my feet now, making the occasional joyful squeaky noise even as I write.
It has been a very quiet day, because of course we don’t open presents until after dinner, but it has been rendered extremely mellow by being the only day of the year when it is permissible to drink whisky all day if you like. Of course we did like, which was not quite as bad as it sounds because it did not really start until about three in the afternoon when we had done all of the important things like emptying the dogs and filling the washing machine.
We had dinner at the Indian restaurant. You will be pleased to hear that we did indeed earn enough cash last night to pay for it, so that was painless and lovely. The dinner itself was every bit as nice as an Indian dinner should be, and we had rich cardamom buttery chicken and spiced lamb, served with beautiful golden coloured saffron rice.
I was starving when we got there, but still couldn’t eat it all.
We watched a film when we got home. This was the latest Disney epic in which the plot was pretty much exactly the same as every other Disney film ever, but which was so breathtakingly beautiful that we were completely entranced. We all sighed with happiness at the end, and then realised that we had forgotten about opening Christmas presents.
It must have been a wonderful Christmas when it has been so nice that you have forgotten your presents.
I am warm and contented and replete.
I think I am going to have a cup of tea before bed.
Merry, merry Christmas.
LATER NOTE. Perfect Christmas…it is snowing.
