A Woman at Home II

Going to the post office to buy stamps and post cards to friends abroad, writing cards, writing letters to the people that I write Christmas letters to, cooking meals, going back to the post office to send the one foreign card I forgot, buying Christmas presents, wrapping Christmas presents, doing the washing, going back to the post office with a parcel, preparing a Christmas stocking, making a Christmas cake, planning menus, posting Christmas cards, cooking meals, writing a shopping list, ordering a turkey, collecting a turkey, cooking meals, taking a child to the pantomime, doing the washing, tidying the house, making up beds for guests, preparing and giving a reading at Carols by Candlelight, cooking meals, going to the post office with a final parcel, doing the washing, choosing and wrapping present for child's teacher, stopping car so that child can run back to the house for it on the last day of term, ordering flowers for my mother-in-law's birthday, doing the washing, finding time to celebrating my own birthday a week before Christmas, going food shopping, having a tooth out, cooking meals, doing the washing, doing my accounts, vetting a contract with a publisher, taking old toys to charity shop to make room for new toys, cooking meals, doing the washing, remembering cards and Christmas boxes for the postman, the dustbin man and so on, persuading my reluctant husband to come with me to buy a tree from the local National Trust nursery, consternation when we see the SOLD OUT sign, driving on over the moors in a desperate search, it's starting to snow, and it's getting dark, and the car's making a strange clanking noise . . .

I take back everything I wrote in my last blog.

But when the last Brussels spout peeling has sunk into the compost, the last bit of Christmas wrapping paper has been smoothed out for recycling, and my head is no longer full of lists, I'll be back on my blog writing about books.

Maybe I'll even get round to writing a novel myself.

And yes we did find a tree in the end. We got home safely, too.