There are some nights when I really wish that I was not a diarist, and I regret to say that this is one of them.
This is not because I do not have wonderful happy times to report, or even because I do not like having a record of them for posterity.
It is because once again I have drunk too much, eaten too much, shouted too loudly and spent the evening in smart clothes that make me want to fidget.
I have now got a sore throat, an uncomfortable digestive system and the beginning of a headache. This is the moment at which any modern medical professional would usher me into a concrete airport hotel and lock the door behind me.
I am sleepy and very contented.
There is no happiness quite like being well-fed and warm, having spent the evening in the company of people whom you like very much.
I have spent the whole day in the company of people that I like. This afternoon we ambled downstairs to sit in designer chairs underneath the entirely convincing fake mediterranean tree in the hotel atrium. We ate olives and chips and gazed contentedly at the beautiful surroundings. It is very nice to be in such a splendidly middle-class marble and glass environment.
My parents came to see us, which was splendid, and sat with us for a while, whilst the children wagged past and occasionally stopped by to see what we were doing.
Our friends wagged past as well, occasionally waving or stopping to help themselves to chips.
We exchanged news and Christmas presents, and honestly I could have sat there all night, but in the end it was time to go and get ready for the pantomime.
I have got a beautiful dress that I like very much, but it is made of shiny man-made fabrics, and makes me itch remorselessly.
I put on my string of pearls as well, but had forgotten to put another coating of nail varnish on the clasp, so that made me itch as well.
I have had an evening of fighting the urge to fidget like a three year old in church.
We gathered in the atrium and had a brief panic as we all suddenly remembered that we were going to need to provide evidence of not having bat flu in order to be allowed into the theatre. This is not law, but for some reason theatres have decided that they need to be even better behaved than the government is telling them, and are insisting on papers, as if we were in East Berlin.
I think that this is like not helping yourself to the bowl of free olives on the bar, in case anybody thinks that you are a passing tramp.
Obviously if you were trying to think of a way of making an evening at the theatre into a worrying and stressful event, for not much obvious gain, it is a jolly good one, and I can recommend it, because we all flapped about dreadfully, and made ourselves late for dinner.
Dinner was ace anyway, and the Chinese chap hugged us all and assured us that the children had grown tall and elegant but we had not aged in the least. Certainly he has not grown older. He is fifty but could genuinely pass as seventeen. At this point in the evening we all ate far too much, and started on a downward spiral of alcohol.
Just to give you a clue, dinner was at five o’ clock. It is now one in the morning and I am still feeling uncomfortably full of spare ribs and bean sprouts.
And then it was the pantomime.
They let us all in eventually, despite some haphazard paperwork and some more anxious flapping.
It was wonderful
It was…well…wonderful.
It was bright and brilliant and far too noisy, and we bellowed at Abanaza, and at Widow Twankey and at Wishee Washee, and loved every minute. There was a magical flying carpet, because when you have got a hydraulic lift in a theatre you do not want to waste it because they are jolly expensive. It gets hauled out of the scene dock every year for a magical flying effect. Last time it was Cinderella’s entire coach and horses, and this time it was the carpet, and it is utterly wonderful every time. I gazed at it entranced, and clapped until my hands were sore, because even though I know how you do these things I could not see it and it worked utterly perfectly.
I love the pantomime. The cultural part of me is secretly still six years old, which is why pantomimes fill me with happy excitement and French films leave me feeling perplexed and wondering why nobody else seems bored.
We strolled back through Manchester’s busy night-time streets and collapsed into armchairs in the hotel bar, where we carried on with the pattern of alcoholic excess which we have established over the last few days.
I am very glad to be in bed, and even gladder that I have now finished writing and can close my eyes.
It has been the most splendidly perfect of days, but it is time that it was over.
The next time you hear from me we will have returned to the Lake District.
I will talk to you then.
