I am not at work.
We spent all evening on the taxi rank last night, by the end of which time we had made eight pounds between us.
We did not even contemplate going back tonight.
Instead, Elspeth and John are coming over for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner, and we are going to drink gin cocktails.
I know that it is not Christmas Eve. There is no law that says you have got to do traditional things at a traditional time, not yet anyway, although I expect somebody in Whitehall could dream one up if they thought about it hard enough. I can do traditions whenever I jolly well feel like. Also it is jolly nice this year not to have to fib about it. Last year we got together on Christmas Eve and it had to be a secret for the first few hours of the evening because it wasn’t legal until midnight.
It is all right to tell you this now, because the police do not investigate rascally illegal parties that happened more than a year ago, just ask Boris.
The thing is that this year we might actually make some cash on Christmas Eve. At the very least it is double time, and so even if we only do one job each we will be doing better than last night.
I am pleased with this arrangement.
This has meant that I have occupied the entire day rushing about cooking things and cleaning up. I did not really need to clean up because Elspeth and John are coming. They are not going to run their fingers along the bedroom windowsill to check for black mould or dust or any other evidence of slatternly behaviour. At least I hope they aren’t. They don’t usually.
The thing is that I am going to have a tidy and well-organised house for Christmas, and the prospect of this is making me feel very happy indeed. I have been floating about, looking at my pristine-dust-free dressing table, and feeling small blossoms of contentment.
I rushed about and tidied up and posted the last of the Christmas cards, if yours is late I am sorry, at least I sent it. I bought everything I could think we might possibly need whilst the shops are all shut over the festive period, and then I started cooking things.
We might need all sorts of things. Although most of the world is only closed for Christmas Day and Boxing Day, Windermere is going to be closed until Wednesday. I know this because they told me in the post office.
I have already posted everything, but I do not want to run out of milk.
Hence the fridge is stuffed full of milk and nice things to eat, and now there are lots of cooked things as well. We have got mince pies and cream whipped with yoghurt, and a sponge cake stuffed with fresh fruit and more cream. We have got cheese and ham pie, albeit a bit overdone because I got distracted making peppermint chocolate, and forgot about it, coconut madras prawns and a huge wheel of Cumberland sausage.
I don’t expect that we are going to eat all of this tonight and so we are going to celebrate Christmas Eve with the nicest imaginable taxi picnic. Christmas is going to be splendid.
We have also made the gin cocktails. You put all the ingredients in a huge jam jar and keep shaking it until you stop feeling guilty about the amount of gin you have just sloshed into it compared with everything else.
Not only is the traditional Christmas Eve Dinner not on Christmas Eve, it is also considerably quieter than usual, because neither Lucy nor Elspeth’s daughter are here. Elspeth’s daughter is in Nepal, where she is staying with a friend from Gordonstoun, and Lucy, of course, is working.
It feels like a very quiet Christmas without her, and for this reason we have decided not to make very much fuss this year. Our exciting Christmas was at the Midland, and our exciting New Year comes in January, after everybody else has had enough and is starting to think about credit card bills and tight trousers.
It is now the middle of the night, and I am starting to think about tight trousers, although not very much because I have sensibly dressed in my baggy dungarees. These would not be too tight if I was eight months’ pregnant, and so being asked to accommodate sausages and coconut prawns, hot bread rolls dripping with butter, a couple of slices of pie, jam and cream cake, and about a quart of gin has been a doddle.
I did salad as well, but there was loads of that left, hardly anybody touched it.
It has been a splendid evening.
I might need to go on a long walk tomorrow.
