It is the middle of the night.
The house is dark and very hushed.
Mark is in the shower and all of the little children have gone to bed.
Actually I don’t think they are really in bed. Lucy and Jack have gone to their room to watch a film and Oliver had some new games consisting of extreme cyber-violence in his Christmas stocking, and I think that he has retreated to play them.
The process of trying to purchase them was sufficient in itself to incline a person towards extreme violence. I tried to buy them on Steam, which will not sell you anything unless you have an account, and then when you grit your teeth and set up an account, won’t let you buy anything for somebody else unless you have added them to your list of cyber-friends and they have agreed to be your friend.
The whole process took seventeen emails, the last one of which arrived about ten minutes ago, warning Oliver that some rascal was trying to purchase games to add to his account and if it was a villain then he should Click This Link at once.
I deleted it, because he was already immersed in Call Of Duty Murder Massacre And Mayhem by then.
It has been a very, very splendid day.
Number One Daughter and her family turned up this morning, for the ceremonial opening of Ritalin Boy’s Christmas present, which was a new tuck box, and for breakfast in the conservatory, which was single malt whisky and smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. This is always one of my favourite bits of Christmas, I would eat this every single day if it wasn’t for turning into a fat drunk, which is what would happen quite quickly. I am beginning to feel uncomfortably that in fact I might already be turning into a fat drunk, I have done no exercise whatsoever for days and days, and I have eaten chocolate with everything. I have drunk so much wine that I am getting bored with it, and the Christmas cake has turned out quite astonishingly well.
It is not good for anybody to live mostly on mince pies and Christmas cake, with chocolate in between.
Also, which was a very happy moment, Jack’s dad, who is called Rod, turned up for breakfast as well. He has not been very well, so he had been going to spend Christmas on his own, but at the last minute he was all right, and made the trek up to be with us, which was brilliant.
I like Jack’s dad. He used to be a traffic warden, and he has all of the indifference to whinging that you might associate with that profession. He tells entertaining stories, and today he had brought with him several excellent cakes, most of which I am sorry to say we have already eaten.
After breakfast Number One Daughter and family had to leave, because they were having the sort of Christmas where you belt around between several branches of the family, being nice to people and getting increasingly desperate for a drink.
We collapsed in front of a film. That is to say, the children collapsed in front of a film, it was called Avatar Two and was about some interplanetary blue hippies, and really was the most dreadful twaddle. I got bored with it in the end, it is never good when you are watching a film in the hopes that somebody will shoot the earth-loving peaceful sanctimonious blue pillock and bring the whole thing to a premature conclusion. Also it was stuffed with lots of dramatically violent jeopardy, which I loathe.
I took Tonka, who is Number One Daughter’s dog, and who was having a brief holiday with us, into the conservatory and gave him a haircut, which took me almost until it was time to go out for dinner.
The Indian restaurant was ace. It always is. Despite having eaten half a barrel full of chocolate and mince pies I still ate stacks of poppadoms and mango butter chicken, and thumped down the stairs feeling very stuffed indeed. It was jolly good, and loads better than turkey.
I can hear Mark getting out of the shower so I had better hurry up. It is Boxing Day already, and I would like to be in bed.
After that we opened our Christmas presents. I had some very nice scented soap, which I have shoved in my underwear drawer until I have used up the current bar, so that my knickers will smell of flowers, which always seems to me to be the height of sophistication. Also Oliver brought me a beautiful Japanese box, which has gone on my dressing table .
Poor Lucy and Jack had left in a rush because Lucy came straight from a night shift, and dreadfully, they had left their Christmas presents behind. They were very upset about this, but of course it didn’t matter, and actually we all had so many presents that nobody noticed anyway.
It was all brilliant, a gorgeous bright day of company and all of my very favourite things in one day. I am feeling full to the brim of very lovely memories.
It has been splendid.
I am going to bed. Merry Christmas.
