It's still Christmas? You sure?

Seriously. We had Christmas last Sunday - the whole nine yards. PiLs, SiLs, and cousins by the bushel, turkey, crackers, presents, the Hat Game, church. Then everyone went home, and we breathed a sigh of relief - a whole other year until the next one.

BUT NO. Turns out that was just us - the rest of the world is still waiting, and shopping, and wrapping, and shopping some more, and we have to go through it all again, on the distaff side, tomorrow. On the other hand, I didn't cook last Sunday, Jeremy did (Wow. And Yum.) and I'm not cooking tomorrow, Julia is, so maybe Christmas isn't so bad after all.

Being as how I am fairly sure none of my children read this, I feel it is safe(ish) to tell you that Jeremy drank the whiskey, ate half the carrot and somehow disposed of the Cadbury's Flake that the children left for Santa Claus, along with their pillow cases. He also carefully created a foot- and a hoof-print from the ash in the hearth. (The hoofprint looks as if the reindeer is shod, and I think actually reindeer have cloven hooves - here's hoping the kids won't spot that one.)

But now I too still have a little wrapping to do, so I will bid you all a Merry Christmas. Have a lovely day.

Dja miss me? Didja? Didja?

Life with a busted modem proved to be strangely restful. No blogging (for this was the week I resolved to post EVERY DAY. And I couldn't. Tcha.) No email, no Amazon or eBay (for those people to whom we are giving windscreen wipers, a bag of charcoal briquettes or a car air freshener shaped like a Christmas tree, blame O2, not me) and absolutely no idea of the responsibilities I'd undertaken, or any requests made of me, because my life is contained by my Hotmail account, meant that all I could do was read my book. (Turns out I can ignore screaming children with my nose in a book just as well as I can with my nose superglued to a screen. Go me.)

And it only took three hours and the barest minimum of seasonal swearing to wrestle the new one into place.

And in spite of all my delaying tactics, Christmas is, once again, almost upon us. Term ended - Kit scampered through this final week unscathed by rampant bugs, Beri had to be shovelled, over his loudest protestations, into school, and Sid blithely attended her VERY LAST DAY of Nursery, totally unaware of the end of a blissful era. Jeremy can't quite decide whether to be ill or not (I'm holding my thumbs for Not - he's OC Christmas Lunch tomorrow) and I am On The Up. Jeremy's parents are already here, and hs sisters and families arrive tomorrow - only 16 for lunch. We'll be fine.

These showbiz parties . . .

I don't know that there was much overlap between the two camps - the 'showbiz types' and the 'villagers'. Or, as Elizabeth Hurley so memorably put it, 'soldiers' and 'civilians'. By and large, one stuck with what one knew. I was quietly surprised that Baby-Faced Comedian was REALLY TALL, appalled at what Influential Comedy Writer And Performer had done to his hair (think Brian May on a bad day) and a bit disappointed that, as Actor Of Whose Work I Am Particularly Fond was sporting a straggly beard and heavy hornrims, he was discouraging panting fans by donning an unappealing disguise. Yup, it was Rachael and Arm's Christmas Party, and there were PLENTY of lovely new (not showbiz) people to meet. Not that the showbizzies weren't lovely. I imagine.

Talking of showbiz, the season of school christmas plays has come and gone, with the littlies acquitting themselves nobly. Beri delivered his line with aplomb, and Sid, for her rendition of 'a star', appears to be channeling Brunnhilde.

And I have my voice back, to the children's chagrin. All it took was to make an appointment with the doctor. Not actually to see him, you understand, just to make the appointment. Within five minutes I was chatting away fit to break my children's hearts. Jeremy has now been handed the baton, and is drooping for two. Still, only an extremely busy day tomorrow - our guests for the day will still be on Singapore time and therefore wanting to start the day early.

Hors de Combat

I bin poorly - poor li'l me. Gah. Poorly enough to do ABSOLUTELY BUGGER ALL except the barest necessities - kids to and from school, fed and put to bed. The rest of the time I spent cuddled in a fleecy blanket, rocking back and forth and moaning softly to myself. And now the kitchen table is so covered with paperwork I can't find it, not for ready money. Even though I know roughly where it's supposed to be.

Lapsed memberships and insurance policies, and un-accepted invitations to parties, and BILLS, and uncatalogued catalogues I can bear, but not applying for tickets to school Christmas plays?* (Right about now I need to know how to spell that noise that happens when you suck air in between tightly clenched teeth. Is that the one commonly rendered as 'Tsk'? Actually I want something with more of an air of life-or-death about it. Bit more doomy. (When I told Beri that Sid was going to be a star, he said 'No. She's going to be a TOILET. The Toilet of DOOOM.') Anyway.)

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Luckily, as I started this post DAYS ago, I am now in a position to tell you that not only did we get tickets, we got excellent tickets. For the first time I will actuall SEE a child of mine on stage, rather than having to guess their whereabouts. Ah, what the heck, it will be coming out on DVD soon anyway.

And now I have forgotten the point of this post - I'm signing off. Kit and two of his friends are sitting at the dining room table doing everything EXCEPT their homework, supper needs to be a'cookin', and I really REALLY need to finish my book (Space. Really REALLY dense. Next up - The Shack. I really REALLY hate reading books that I know I am obliged to find good thing to say about. I so often can't, and discussing the book then becomes a game of finding stuff to say that SOUNDS as if I liked it, but that's not actually a big fat lie. Morally VERY shaky ground there.)

O hang on, there was a lovely evening where Jeremy discovered that our AA membership did not, in fact, cover Home Start. The plan had been for me to call the AA in the morning, and get them to change the recently bought and extremely flat tyre, so I could drive to the garage and spend the day arguing the toss with the tyre sales department. So, at 11:30 PEE EM, he and I piled out onto the forecourt, him to do the manly changing of the tyre and me to do the Dance of the Seven Parkas on the forecourt, to keep the motion sensor light on. That was fun.

Also also, while we are on the subject of the AA, I heard tell that American Airlines was founded, and was run for ages, by a very devoutly Christian family - Millenialists of some description, believing that at the Second Coming the faithful would be bodily taken up into Heaven. Now - of the two pilots in the cockpit, one would always be of a similar religious persuasion, natch, but the other had to be a non-believer. This was in case the Rapture occured during a flight - the believer would disappear out of the cockpit, but the infidel would still be able to land the plane safely. How caring is that?