December 1

Right. Now you can start talking about Christmas.

What's different? Well, it's freezing (suddenly). The sun is shining (although it wasn't when I got up this morning). Work has started to ease off a bit. Classic FM* are now playing a Christmas carol every other song. Although since about mid-October they've been surreptitiously advertising John Rutter CDs, getting as far as 'What sweeter music shall...' before cutting the sound clip. Since about the same time, my brother has been asking me for a Christmas list. This basically means a list of CDs, DVDs or books that I might want so that he can pick one and buy it. The trouble is, I don't have any particular wish list at the moment. What I'd like to buy are party dresses and high heeled shoes for all those office Christmas parties that I will spectacularly fail to gatecrash. Which reminds me: what on earth do freelancers do about the office Christmas party, hmm?? Do we just all get together and go to the pub? What about karaoke, reindeer ears, warm cava and being groped by Gary from IT?

Where books are concerned, I'm desperate to get to Grant & Cutler (every language from Afrikaans to Zulu), but unfortunately they don't issue gift vouchers.

It's now getting too cold and wet to run outside, so I've been looking for alternative forms of indoor sport (except for that one: the Dalai Lama says it's bad for you).
These include: running upstairs for the phone; remote Strictly Come Dancing audience participation (best executed right in the field of vision of your fellow viewers) and fencing the dog. This last is largely ineffective, since the Other Dog tends to be unresponsive by day and hidden under the piano by night, while the Spaniel is game to start with but then gets over-excited, potters round in a circle, sniffs her tail and pees on the carpet. I wouldn't mind except that cleaning the carpet interrupts play and causes me to forget the score.

Wait! There's a Strictly Come Dancing section on Amazon! Let's see... 'Dance with Len Goodman', second-hand for £4.98! **

Hm. Christmas. Darkness, singing and pitching a tent in the north aisle of the church for some hardcore anglo-catholicism.

And then, new resolutions for the New Year. This time last year I made huge resolutions to Change Everything and Follow My Dreams. And now I'm still trying to steer things in the right direction and still trying to make it work and still not getting anywhere. What's the solution? I suspect there is none.

*The knob on the bathroom radio is stuck, ok?
**NB: any male member of my family or acquaintance purchasing this item will be subject to Never Being Spoken To Again. Which is a deterrent or an incentive, depending on how you look at it.