Some Decidedly Non Seasonal Things:
1. I just had a kind of crying telephone conversation with a nice Scottish lady representing HSBC. I was a bit rude, and she was mostly not, although I could hear she was a little bit over my ranting and the creeping crying sound in my voice, which I gave up trying to hide. And it was all over a £25 fine. It seemed a worthy fight to have at the time, but now I am not so sure. Perhaps ’tis the season to avoid bank-related rage.

2. Custard vomited today, and we were sitting on the couch, and I was having to use my hand as a spew receptacle, and Barnaby was in the kitchen, and I was screaming out for a bowl, or a pot. Barnaby looked in the utensils drawer, and in the oven, and in the tea towel drawer, and in the washing machine. The pot cupboard was the one cupboard his 5 year old peripheral vision couldn’t quite manage. I think I swore a little bit. It may have been funny-comical if it hadn’t have been my hand.

3. The baby is suffering from separation anxiety. This means, in a literal translation, that he shrieks at me until I pick him up. If I run away very fast and lock myself into the bathroom for a bit, he sniffs me out and shrieks outside the door. Or, Custard whacks him on the head with kitchen utensils (not pots, because, apparently, those under six years old cannot find them) and the shrieks get louder.

4. I am becoming vainer about my appearance, and, as such, not only had a botanical face peel this week, but also had moulds taken from my teeth to whiten them with gels in the night. Ha! How my 23 year old self would have scoffed! How outraged by the walking cliche of a woman in a rabbit fur coat on her way to visit a clinic in Putney for ‘improvements’! What is more, no one told me these things hurt.

The ‘botantical’ face peel was about as botantical as my hazardous susbstances-bathroom cleaning cupboard. It contained salacitic acid, which is the same ingredient we are using to dissolve Barnaby’s montrous veruccas. My face is now red, and spider veiny, and will apparently peel like a scabby roaccutane teenager. All in time for the big Christmas Eve party where we will have a total of 28 people who will come and try not to notice the effects of my ‘exfoliation process’. The teeth mould hurts my gums, which have swollen just a bit, and the gel turns my teeth a little bit porous, and exposes the nerve a little bit, and makes just sitting here typing a bit ouchier than it used to be. The lesson here? I am vain, and deserve a little pain for my first-world ageing angst. As Julie Burchill would say, I would be better off volunteering.

5. It is 1:36pm and there are children in pyjamas everywhere I look. Some of them are a bit dirty. I n some ways, quite truthfully, I wish to be back at the salon having acid poured onto my face, because at least it was quiet.

6. There is no suckling pig to be found in the City of London, which is what happens when you do not put your order in early enough. So it shall be lamb, ham, duck and beef with a bit of gammon to add to our season of porkiness. I am so glad I am not vegetarian.

7. Our year old, broken, crusty, food-stained mouldering double buggy got stolen from outside our flat last week. It is astonishing that anyone, even a hardened thief who really needed some Christmas cash for cider would have bothered to take it. And of course it means that my whole line on not cleaning it, because then the robbers would leave it alone, has been INVALIDATED. So, we had to get a new one, very fast, which is currently chained to the bottom of the stairs. That is all going to make the school run just that little bit more fun, no?

Gripes over. Happy Christmas, enjoy the break, and the love, and if you are anywhere near your family, then be glad, because some of us live too far away to be with ours. JEALOUS.