merry, merry, happy, happy

'Tis hoovered, 'tis swept, 'tis dusted, 'tis cleaned (well, only the bits you can see, let us not be over-ambitious). The supermarkets have shut, there is no more shopping to be done. The loaves are baked, filling the house with spelt flour goodness at 2am, and only one ancient loaf tin has died, because I didn't grease it (I know I have more, newer, somewhere, but somewhere is somewhere, and not here). The drinks are stocked, the fridge is full. I am (nearly) booted and suited, all ready to go out and start the actual festivites, having lain in a lowly bath while listening to angelic (ha! I've known a few choir boys in my time) choir boys start the King's College Nine Lessons and Carols.

The tree went up, and came down - cats, shiny glittery things, and climbing opportunities, predictable, of course. The presents are wrapped, with only one little thing left to make (why yes, it does involve yarn). And not even nemesis mouse is around, to stir through the house, on the night before Christmas.

And now, I must go and lie down on the kitchen floor. Because I think I dropped an apple yesterday, and I think it rolled under the washing machine (the kickboards are up, because the cats are convinced something ghastly lives under there - dust balls, mainly - and it is somehow easier to let them roam, than listen to the nightly yowls), but I'm not entirely sure, 'cos I might be imagining it, but then again it could have rolled back and behind and round the corner, and out of reach to rot delicately over the coming weeks. And I shall start my Christmas having quiet hysterics, again, as the world turns on.

To all friends, old and new, real and virtual, to those who do, and those who don't, happy, happy, merry, merry.

please, is *it* over yet?

Yes, yes, so I may in fact have got the 'puter back a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't really been meaning to be so deeply neglectful in my blog feeding. Just that, you know, it is one of those times of year, when everything builds up, and there is too much to do, and then on top of that people keep expecting you to go out and be social. Like buying the evil fake xmas tree for the xmas party wasn't enough (the buying of which involved 2 trips to the same shop, and because the first trip went so horribly, tormentingly wrong, and somehow I managed to emerge bereft of fake tree, but carrying smoke alarms, unbelievably cheap and nasty acrylic yarn, and glitter glue, which is now all over the patio, after 3 hours wandering lost, feeling just a little like a hamster finally released from a laboratory maze, after having defiantly failed to press the red button in order to get the treat, which meant that the second trip saw me being accompanied, for my own good, apparently, by someone who would probably have preferred to have put me in some kind of child's training harness, but instead decided to resort, despite repeated threats of violence involving tinsel sprinkles and wrapping paper, to chanting 'spit, spot' at me). Because then I'm expected to go and decorate it, and the tables, and serve the food, make tea and coffee for 30 rapacious women, and stop our dearly beloved but somewhat exasperating president demand the continued participation of members - average age 79 - in the game of musical statues to a rousing chorus of 'Here we go round the Looby Loo' (for the third time that evening).

But at least I have missed the last post for xmas cards, so I can now throw that annual guiltfest out the window, and resort to the whole hand-delivered only thing (and don't you dare mention that they haven't been written yet, that isn't fair - because the most important card has gone, which is, of course, the one for that delight of a chap who delivers my morning newspaper, regardless).

And of course no xmas knitting will have been done in time, but seeing as intended knitting giftees live on in blind ignorance, it doesn't matter one jot, and I get to work on MY shawl, for MY present to ME.

Oh, and another reason for not feeding the blog - although the computer no longer sounds like a didgeridoo (which I sort of miss), some of the software has gone walkabouts, and until a certain person (who might earlier have been beaten with a swathe of xmas themed tissue paper, for quoting Mary Poppins in inappropriate locations - and when was the last time you read Mary Poppins? One scary lady, scarier even that Dick van Dyke's cockernee accent - finds the disk they borrowed, and photo software is reinstalled, there will be no pictures. Which is a little sad, because that means no pictures of the beauteous and righteous stitch markers that Mary-Lou sent me.

But there has been some action here, when I was still computer-less. The main delight of which is a story involving a bath, tiny, tiny little screws, back spasms, and mass destruction in the house with garden saws. A story to be told another day, when you are all good and quiet little children.

Oh yes, I promised tales of mice and other things. I am sad to say that nemesis mouse has met his end. Because he pushed his luck just once too much, was caught again, lost again, caught again, lost again, formally identified as nemesis mouse - same cocky tilt to his snout, and a butter wouldn't melt twitch to his tale - and I was prepared to give him a third chance. But this time, he chose to hide in a bag of roving (because yes, I am still trying to learn to spin), and that was a step too far. Mice widdling up the curtains I can take (just), but when he sets up shop in hand-dyed roving gifts from the glorious Woolly Wormhead, well, something snaps. And a quick dispatch with the back of a shovel is the result. Warning notices have been posted by the back door, at mice-height.

But, enough. And the sofa and spiffy clean, just been washed, and that evil bastardly washing machine went and slightly felted it, crochet blanket are calling.