That day when you feel a hell of a lot better than the day before when your head is pounding with ten elephant ballerinas and somebody has emptied a cannister of CO2 into your guts...You wake up realising that you haven't died. You got through New Year's Day and only had to spend 2.5 hours in the bathroom, which wasn't that bad as they were showing Only Fools & Horses: that episode where Rodney 'hilariously' (and I use that term very, very loosely and if it drips with much more sarcasm, it is liable to wash away...) gets called a plonker for the millionth time by Del Boy, and The Wizard of Oz on the telly. Again.Then the postman arrives and your world caves in. Ah me...Why do I like this time of year so very much?
Well, I shall let you into a secret. I love giving presents to people. I get much more of a kick out of giving them than receiving them, (Mr P, please don't take this statement too much to heart. Eternity Rings are an exception to this rule...) and I am like a cat on a hot tin roof, desperate for the recipients to play my guessing games as to what they are about to receive (and for that they should be truly thankful...Amen). For example, I have bought Mr P a *******/****/********** for Christmas and I cannot wait to give it to him. So I pester him to play the guessing game with him, promising him that if he does guess it, I won't tell him if he's right or not. He doesn't like this game, and refuses to play for some considerable time until I have made his ears bleed with my incessant nagging.
So, this morning, he wearily acquiesced, I promised faithfully not to give anything away and he asked, Is it anything to do with photography?
YES!
Oops...
I clapped my hand over my mouth in shock at my utterance, blushed unbearably red at my error and then squawked at myself, loudly, for being completely incapable of keeping a secret. I couldn't believe that my mouth was in Top Gear when my brain was still strolling down a pretty country lane...
Last year, whilst very distracted by a telephone conversation at work, I noticed, vaguely, that my colleagues were whispering amongst themselves. As soon as I put the phone down, one of them asked, Who did you get for Secret Santa, then? I automatically told them and was screeched out of the department for being a 'gob-sh*te' and incapable of holding my water.
This year, I thought I was being slightly more clever in ordering everything on-line and adjusting delivery dates to just before Christmas. So I wouldn't be tempted to hand everything out, you understand? I ordered this digital tablet thingummy for Charles, about which I knew nothing and then fretted. Was this what he wanted? It looked more like a hot-plate for warming pans than something with which you could do whizzy digital photography things. By 10pm, I had showed him the reviews, the tech specs, and groaned because he didn't think he had the USB port it required. Two weeks ago, I bought him three photography books. One evening, he was a bit down in the dumps, so I gave them to him to cheer him up.
So that's now four presents of which he has knowledge.
(Aside: I keep smelling blue cheese in here...I wonder what's wrong with my nose?)
He's got to have some surprises for Christmas Day, so yesterday, I returned to eBay, armed with my Flexible Friend and, eyes shut very tightly, heart beating wildly, I hit the 'Buy This Now!' button. I do hate being bossed around by an e-commerce site, but they are bullies and I am a weakling at times...
I also had a winning bid on the most amazing, brand new, Nicole Farhi silk and cashmere jumper for him. Every hour, I checked 'My eBay', just in case, and with only 23 minutes to go until the bid ended, I got up to prepare dinner for my beloved family. And lost the bloody jumper. I was spitting hell, fire and brimstone. They can buy their own chips next time...
Despite what he says, Mr P finds it very difficult to hold his water, too. By 2pm yesterday, two of my presents were in my grubby hands and that was without a single, ingle word of cajoling or nagging. I hadn't even mentioned his shopping trip to him - and 'trip' is the operative word by all accounts, when the girls got to him about going within a five mile radius of Anne Summers. (Actually, as another aside, I have a blog to write about the Anne Summers' catalogue. To say I was lost for words and almost hysterical is NOT an understatement...then again, perhaps Mr P should write this for a change...hint, hint) Not once. I am actually really good like that. I don't root in hiding places, I don't ask what I am getting, I just stay very quiet and wish, with everything crossed, that I am getting an Eternity Ring, with dirty big, square-cut diamonds. If I stay really, really still and don't breathe for about 45 seconds, it might just come true...
So, 15 days to go. Actually, Mr P and I are spending Christmas alone this year. #s 1 and 2 daughters are off to the ex's house for six days. Although he has magnanimously allowed them to come here for a 'few hours' on Christmas Day itself. And I wouldn't mind betting it will be either over the lunchtime, so I have to get cooking as from first light, or when the Christmas Rugby Special is showing over on BBC2 wherein the Barbarians drub the living daylights out of England. As usual...
We will be celebrating Christmas for the girls on New Year's Day. A sort of BOGOF deal (Buy One, Get One Free) for them. So, Mr P has agreed to eat salmon with me on 25th December - no petrified turkeys in this house, this year. And we shall probably open a nice bottle of vin rouge or two, maybe stroll down to the local to walk off the mince pies and enjoy the ambience of the Hanging Gate's two bar electric fire.
I simply cannot wait!!
1 comment:
oooo do tell what the star-censored gift was :)
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