I have made a start on my new List of Things To Do.
Having completed the last one, I have now begun on List, The Sequel, or perhaps Son Of List.
It is already almost as long as the first list, and once I have finished adding things to it as they occur to me I don’t doubt that it will finish up considerably longer. I am soaring along on a positive hurricane of seasonal achievements.
Not that it matters, because Mark will be coming home tomorrow night, and after that all things list-related will probably be terribly neglected anyway. It is very hard to get on with a organised programme of jobs when there is six feet of husband absently milling about everywhere.
He might be home for quite a while now. The oil industry goes a bit quiet at this time of year, because you can’t do very much on an oil rig when it is dark practically the whole time, and when the weather is rubbish.
The North Sea is very good at rubbish weather. It is a superlatively bad place to be when meteorological matters get rough.
Hence I am going to have a very sociable December. Not only will Mark be home, but we have planned all sorts of Things To Do. There are logs to be sawn and cars to be fixed, mince pies to be made and Christmas catering to be managed. We will be going to the carol concert in Ripon Cathedral in a couple of weeks, after which there will be a trip to York Christmas Market, and of course there will also be all of our normal seasonal activities of the pantomime and our visit to the Midland.
By the time Christmas itself turns up we have usually had so much socialising that we are very pleased to give up and just collapse quietly with an Indian dinner.
My master-plan is to have completed all lists before the festive season cranks into action. Then I will be able to spend the entire time milling around with a glass of sherry in my hand, smiling benevolently at the world and eating mince pies for every meal. You do not even need to worry about getting fat when it is Christmas. You know that you will be fat by the end of it, so all you need to do is get on with it and save all of the worrying for January. January is a good time for worrying. Credit card bills and tight trousers usually feature largely on my agenda.
In the meantime, however, all of those glorious days are still in the far distant future, and I am still labouring away with Advent calendars and Christmas cakes and cleaning things.
I have poured a very, very lot of brandy over the Christmas cake. In fact it is not one single cake, but two small, loaf-shaped cakes, so that I can present them pristine and untouched on two separate occasions, and also because when I put Christmas cake in my big tin it always sinks in the middle.
They are beginning to glisten.
Since last I wrote in these pages you will not be astonished to learn that I have been furiously busy with all of my list-related affairs. Quite apart from the Advent calendars I have watered the conservatory, swept and mopped the kitchen, shopped in Booths and cleaned out my disgusting taxi. This last turned out to have been a bit of a waste of time after a customer had a small misfortune with a kebab on Saturday night. I was not at all pleased about this and expressed my feelings without reservation. I do wish the police could pop round and make customers lick it up the next day, that would jolly well show them.
Of course in the middle of all of this we still have a warm nest full of squeaky poopies. They are absolutely massive, you would never believe that they are only three days old. They are thickly insulated with sleek layers of wrinkled fat, it is no wonder that Rosie is eating so much. I have added another picture, although it fails to convey the noise that they all make, and it was taken yesterday, they have got bigger even since then.
One poopy, being the ginger one, is the very noisiest. It seems to squeak even when it is asleep. Certainly it squeaks when I am asleep, and it wriggled so much it fell out of the basket this morning, and had to be rescued by me. Both Roger and Rosie were standing next to it, staring thoughtfully at it, but neither of them seemed to have the faintest idea what they might do to restore it.
Their parenting abilities are enthusiastic, but limited, I think.
Not that it matters.
The poopies are thriving anyway.
