I have been getting on with the Advent calendars at long last.
I have not been painting. Actually I have been avoiding the painting. Instead I have been sitting in front of my computer, collating all of the lovely lovely images of my lovely lovely children having all of their thrilling adventures during the past year. They are ready to be printed, glued behind the little doors, and dispatched to their curious grandparents who will doubtless admire a new one’s wonderfulness at the start of every December morning.
One thing was absolutely apparent, they have all had a very lot more adventures than I have.
It does not sound as though it should have been a complicated job, but actually it involves quite a bit of scowling and making ticks on a list. The children are quite shockingly competitive, and there have been some heart-rending telephone calls on those years when they have opined that one sibling is featured more often than the others. Hence carefully detailed plans, and lists with numbers of ticks, have had to be made.
Once I had settled on twenty four appropriate and equally-child-centred pictures, there was the final one to be achieved, the biggest picture which is destined to be unveiled on Christmas Day. This final climactic image is usually created by finding a picture of a group of people doing something splendid, and then superimposing all of our faces over the top, to make it look as though we are the ones with the exciting life.
This is because we never actually do anything splendid all together, and so some fakery has to be employed.
Hence we cunningly make it appear that in the run-up to the festive season we have done all sorts of interesting things, from waving from the balcony of Buckingham Palace to performing as the Von Trapp Family Singers.
I am sure our distant family is entirely convinced.
Obviously I can’t tell you what we are all doing this year because if any of the recipients read it the surprise would be spoiled, not that I think anybody ever opens the Christmas Day window of Advent calendars anyway, even if they have got chocolates behind them, which mine haven’t. Too many exciting things are happening by then.
Not in this house. Christmas Day is the occasion for a guilt-free lie in followed by single malt for breakfast. There is no finer way to celebrate the season.
I would have liked a single malt for breakfast this morning, actually. It is all difficult and complicated when Mark is at home and there are lots of different things to be organised. He had left his taxi in the shed, and so this morning he took mine, along with the dogs, and buzzed off to carry on glueing his taxi back together, which meant that I did not go for my morning walk.
I did not in the least mind not going tor a walk, not least because the weather is vile and I was relieved to have the excuse for stay-at-home idleness. Better still, Mark kindly cleaned the taxi out whilst he was at the shed which is a task right at the top of my Most Hated Jobs list, especially today after some loathsome individual had had a misfortune on the back seat with a pizza and chips last night.
I would have liked to have rubbed their noses in it.
Oliver, who is on nighty shifts, emerged from his bed at some time during the late afternoon, and helpfully drove me over to the shed to collect my taxi and the dogs, who had been dispatched out from under my feet because they are still locked in the tiresome throes of passion for one another. They can barely disconnect themselves at the moment, and are spending every possible moment panting into one another’s ears in the most inconvenient places imaginable. I tripped over them and booted them out into the conservatory several times in the short time they were at home, not that they seemed to mind. They were so engrossed in one another they did not even wish to join us for coffee this morning, but remained noisily downstairs, dribbling and snorting and leaping upon one another.
I do wish they would get over it. I do not have the sort of soul that appreciates the joyful passion of ecstatic lovers
Mark’s taxi was still in bits, so I dashed home to get everything ready for work whilst he frantically bashed it all back together, and I am at work now. I am not making very much money because of the shockingly awful weather, and am about to start browsing Netflix to see if they have produced any convincing dramas recently.
I will avoid any which include moments of noisy passion.
We are getting quite enough of that on the kitchen floor at the moment.
