It is the very middle of the night, long after one, and even though I have not been at work, I have not actually got round to writing to you until now this very minute.
I have been very busy.
I am creating our Christmas card.
This is a creative endeavour which always takes ages and involves considerably quantities of glue and glitter. I have not yet got to the glue and glitter stages, and am still wearily embroiled in the composition.
That is to say, I am weary because it is past midnight, but I should also say that I have been enjoying myself very much. I have drunk about half a dozen cups of tea and forgotten to eat anything. In the end I dived into the kitchen, ravenous with hunger pangs, and found a salad that I have taken to work and not eaten three times, so I ate that, except that some of it had misfortunately become rather mouldy, and I had to throw the last bits away, some things are worse than being hungry.
It was a great pleasure to get up this morning with the prospect of a night off glittering before me. The day stretched ahead of me in such a joyously long and uninterrupted fashion that it was quite heady, like the summer holidays when you are eleven.
Unfortunately it was only one day, not the summer holidays, and it very soon filled itself up with all sorts of things. There was the dog-emptying, for which event I recklessly neglected to don my waterproof trousers. I had to hang my dungarees over the fire when I got home, and wander about in my knickers for the next hour, anxiously hoping that there would not be an Amazon delivery.
Fortunately there wasn’t.
Whilst thus disrobed, I occupied myself wrapping Christmas presents. Jack had telephoned whilst I was on my walk, announcing his imminent arrival for the purposes of fixing some other clapped-out wreck at Elspeth’s, and it dawned on me that his Christmas present was sitting nakedly in the conservatory, there for all to see, like me in my knickers had Amazon decided to appear.
I lugged it upstairs and wrapped it. Then I faffed about for a bit with other Christmas presents that need to be dispatched prior to the Big Day. One of the very nice things about having so many people here for Christmas is that all of their Christmas presents do not need to be wrapped up just yet.
I wasted a very great deal of time trying to order some Christmas presents for Number Two Daughter in Canada. None of the online shops I tried would accept payments from an English bank account.
In the end I gave up and decided that I would just give her cash instead. I posted her some books last year and the postage cost nearly sixty quid, roughly twice as much as the books, so she can choose her own books. I feel mildly guilty about this lack of present-donation, but not enough to spend another sixty quid this year.
Also I posted her Advent calendar more than three weeks ago, and it has still not arrived.
In the end I abandoned the Christmas presents, because it was my day for meeting my friend in the computer. She is writing a novel, and is full of very interesting ideas. All my stories are full of rubbish like dragons, not sensibly-researched projects that involve accurate thinking, which is not my strong point. I listened to her with considerable admiration and another cup of tea, and thought smugly how very fortunate I am to have such clever friends.
This occupied an hour very nicely, and I was starting to become uncomfortably aware that I was running out of day. I made a determined start on the Christmas card, and I was thoroughly embroiled in its composition when Jack appeared.
I failed in my hostessly duties. I told him vaguely that there were pies and sausage rolls in the fridge, and carried on contemplating holly leaves and glitter.
It is not finished yet, nowhere near, but I have hopes for tomorrow.
I am going to think about it for just a bit longer before I go to bed.
