I am afraid that I have had the dullest of wet days and I can’t really imagine you will wish to hear much about it.
You will understand what I mean when I tell you that by far and away the thrilling highlight was a trip to the vet with Rosie this afternoon for her vaccine boosters. At least part of this involved tipping something nasty up her nose which made her sneeze vigorously all over the vet.
The vet, who is off a far more patient nature than I am, sighed, and wiped her face, and said at least she could be sure of not catching kennel cough now.
Apart from that she had an excited wee on the floor and growled savagely at a large dog beside us, which glanced vaguely down at his ankles to see if he could locate from whence the miniature threat might be emanating.
I mean Rosie, obviously, not the vet.
In other news, I have been planning our Christmas extravaganza, rather later than usual because of anxieties over the children’s attendance. In the end I decided that I like the pantomime very much, and so does everybody else, and it would be a very sad thing for all of us not to go just because Lucy happens to be working a night shift and has too many scruples to call in sick.
I would have taken a leaf out of Number Two Daughter’s book if it had been me. When booking her holiday from work to come here, she explained to her boss that she was not coming in on the days she had decided to visit England. When he demurred, she told him that in her role as an employee she was selling him her time. Some of her time, she explained, was not for sale, like the stuffed cat in the antique shop window. He could buy some of her time if he liked, but regrettably not that bit, which was not available. It was off the market.
He scratched his head and nodded, which I suppose was about the only option he had open to him.
Lucy, however, is neither old enough, nor sufficiently assertive to pursue this line of reasoning with the Northamptonshire Police Human Resources Department, and hence has reluctantly explained that she will not be joining us this year.
For many months the whole shebang has wavered in the balance whilst I considered the prospect of going without Lucy. Last night I decided that I will enjoy it almost as much anyway, and will only feel the smallest bit guilty about leaving her out, and only that until I have had the first couple of drinks, and so I have booked it.
I have been staring anxiously at the Midland website wondering about booking that. The very kind chap who used to give me generous discounts has got another job somewhere else, and it is all looking very expensive, even if we are a child down.
I will have to think about it.
Just to add to the seasonal extravagance we have booked ourselves tickets to attend the MacMillan carol concert at Ripon Cathedral. Regular readers will recall that we used to do this every year, in Oliver’s youthful days as a choirboy, but he has grown tall, and deep-voiced, and gone north, and so we have not been for ages.
We missed it. It was one of the splendid things about Christmas. I can’t sing carols any more, not since bat-flu stole my voice away, but I can croak loudly, and we loved the cathedral, and the choirs, and the Nine Lessons, and we know lots of people who will also be there, so we are going.
We thought we might pop across to York’s Christmas Markets whilst we are in Yorkshire.
Such excitements have made me feel considerably more cheerful about the world, which I don’t mind telling you had begun to look a bit bleak, with the onset of long dark nights, no taxi customers and the discovery that I am a second-class poet.
I do not in the least mind not writing world class poetry if I am in the Midland whilst I am not doing it.
In fact, on reflection, I can’t think of anything I would like doing better. I shall sit in the Midland and not write poetry. It sounds blissful.
I probably won’t be writing in these pages for a couple of nights either. Weekends are not exactly busy, but they are regularly interrupted by persons who do not even begin to realise that they are from Porlock.
I will see you soon.
