don't

Bugger. Have realised that I don't like Christmas cake anymore. Anyone want some? There's approx. 15 lb left.

Otherwise, thank goodness Christmas is over. It wasn't pleasant. The sore throat turned into a monster cold and made me wish I could crawl into a small dark warm cave with the cat until it all went away.

sore

Today I have a sore head, which is entirely my fault, and a sore throat which isn't.

The sore head came about as a result of the decision to have some friends round for dinner. Six people, seven and a half bottles of wine drunk. You do the math, as they say. Still, it was worth it as I had a great time, Robin had a great time and I hope everyone else did too, including the person who received drunken txts from various dinner participants regarding her possible appearance on a TV show about her and her large breasts and requesting the actual size of said attributes.

We never did get an answer though.

Anyway, I'm off to see if snorting lukewarm salt water will help the throat. Or, I might just have to start drinking again.

bum

I realised today that there would be a use for children, if I had any. I could put them in their oldest, softest clothes, spray them with furniture polish and challenge them to a skidding contest on the wooden floors. All categories of upright, fully prone and everything in between would have to be covered. Extra points to be earned for corner work and most amount of dust on trousers.

I would therefore be saved what I've just been doing today which is skidding about on my knees and bum with a can of pledge in one hand and a duster in the other.

I wonder if Aggie and Kim would like to borrow this tip for their next book; "How to ruin your life by washing your dirty linen in public"?

ice

There's a festival of winter fun happening at the Zoo, apparently, this Christmas. Over neighbourly mulled wine last night people said they'd been, or were planning to go. Sounds like great fun, ice skating in the open air. This took me back to what must have been 1985. I'd had a pair of skates for Christmas and, with consummate timing for once, the Broads froze over early the next year. I went down with Dad to try them out. Wahey! onto the ice. Bam! flat on my face. Up again. Bam! Up again. Bam! This continued for some time and I was perplexed. I'd been able to do better than this at ice rinks. Then Dad remembered. When he'd bought his skates a few years before he'd had exactly the same problem - the bottom points at the front were catching on the uneven surface of the ice.

After a quick trip home for modifications - the removal of the bottom two teeth on each skate - we went back again and successfully skated ourselves into exhaustion. I've not skated since, except for a turn or two at the Sobell centre near Finsbury Park but I still have my skates. Just in case we get another big freeze and I can be there. Or in case hell freezes over.

address

I was going to title this post "humbug", but decided that would definitely be the worst case of mundanity since I called my cat Holly. I thought it was an original name, chosen because of our liking for Red Dwarf, Holly Hunter, and because Holly Golightly had a cat. But in the ensuing years I have discovered that every second cat AND d.o.g. in the country is apparently also called Holly. So, not very original then. As neither would be a piece at this time of the year called "humbug".

I do feel a bit humbuggy though. Which is not fair, 'cause I do like Christmas. I like cake, as I explained before, and I like buying presents for people and wrapping them up. I love the jolt of recognition followed by relief and happiness I get when I realise what the perfect present would be for so-and-so. I love buying Christmas cards and writing them and sticking the special Christmas-y stamps on and posting them. What I don't like is getting them.

Every day, pretty much, at this time of year, some cards drop through the letterbox. And, inevitably, at least some of them will be addressed to "Mr & Mrs". I absolutely LOATHE being reduced to three letters which aren't even special to me inbetween my husband's title and his name. I think this practice should be outlawed. I cannot understand why people, particularly those who are of the same generation as me, especially those with whom I have spent drunken evenings, would revert to this style of address. They wouldn't email me as "Mrs". Don't put it on an envelope then!

Grr. But then again, thank heaven for the lovely lovely people who don't do this and give me my full name. Thank you, you save me from being Scrooge.

fun

At this time of the year it is definitely worth taking a little time off to play games and be silly. And I can't think of anything more fun or more silly than Slingshot Santa.