Dearie me, I have got my knickers in a twist with this whole Christmas business.
There are just so many things that I am supposed to be thinking about, and so far I think you should know that I have messed them up, almost entirely.
I have not bought Christmas presents, nor made Christmas cards, nor made all the things I am supposed to be making. I have not packed for our thrilling trip to Manchester, and I keep accidentally spending all of our money.
I have made a start on all of the above, and then become distracted. In fact I have got dozens of half-completed tasks lying about making a mess everywhere.
Lucy is having a Krav Maga Rapid Assault Techniques course for her Christmas present. We would normally just have paid for this, but it is so toe-curlingly expensive that it is just going to have to be a present. Also it lasts over several days, and is in Carlisle, so she is probably going to have to stay in an hotel, which I suppose is going to have to be another present. She is very excited about it, because she will be qualified as an instructor when it is finished. The Krav Maga instructor has said that he will make sure she is all right, but actually she is rather hoping that somebody will try and mug her whilst she is there, in order that she can have a chance to try out her violence.
She is greatly looking forward to the festive season. This time her holiday job is as a bouncer on the doors of the nightclubs. She starts on Saturday, and will be shadowing the head doorman, presumably to learn how they lure idiots into the car park away from the cameras before they beat them up. I don’t quite know what to think about this. We have had to provide her with a special warm anorak as worn by doormen, and she was wondering about some steel toecap boots.
I have begun to contemplate quite how much we have spent on her genteel-young-lady education.
At least one of her teachers is planning to come to Windermere this Christmas. I imagine it will be quite a surprise for him if he decides to sample the local nightlife.
Once we had finished forking out for Lucy’s career plans we went off down to Bowness to visit the lodger. She is not the lodger any more, because of having a new flat. She sent me a text wondering if perhaps I might like to pop round with the hoover, so we all went. We had a happy coffee together sitting on her floor, because she hasn’t saved up for chairs yet, whilst Mark painstakingly screwed her complicated new bed together.
It is a nice new flat, although it will definitely be improved when the landlord adds a roof. This feature is missing at the moment, but the lodger doesn’t seem to mind, she thinks that it is lovely to be an independent woman with her own kitchen and shower that nobody is queueing up for. Personally I think I would have held out for one with a roof, but each to his own.
When we left the lodger’s flat we had our special annual trip for our Christmas tree. We save up the two-pound-coin collection for this every year, and buy the tree from a local farm. This is always a brilliant thing to do, not only because there are reindeer, but also because the farmer is an old acquaintance, in fact he was the magistrate who presided when Mark adopted Lucy, when she was a tiny tot. He is always pleased to see us, and we him, and it always feels like the most wonderful of special happy-ever-after things that we could possibly do at Christmas.
It was snowing as we loaded the tree into the car, and we took somebody else’s tree for them as well, because his car wasn’t big enough. This was somebody who has been grumpy in the taxi before now, and so it was lovely to make them happy.
It felt very Christmassy and splendid.
We can’t decorate the tree yet. We promised Oliver that we would not do it until they were all home. We suggested doing it on his last exeat, but he didn’t want to, not without Lucy.
By tomorrow we will all be together.
I might not be ready, but it is wonderfully exciting all the same.
