Advent

[shewhomust]

We have made the transition from "I already have several Christmas presents sorted, and lots of time to go" to "Where did the time go? I have so many Christmas presents still to find...".

• I have agreed gracefully that it is someone else's turn to play host, and that this year we will Christmas in Newcastle, which gives me a lovely sense of irresponsibility, and things not to worry about.


• My contribution is to be the pudding. I have peeked under the wrappings of the survivor from last year's batch; it seems fine (and I've bought a spare just in case)


• I have bought much of the fruit I need to bake a cake, but can't find any candied peel (I like the sort that comes in big pieces of peel): maybe tomorrow, at the supermarket...


• I have pinned the advent calendar on the notice board, and opened the permitted doors - I don't usually have one, but bought this one when we went to Whitby, because I liked it so (it's by Matthew Rice, but there don't seem to be any pictures of advent calendars on his website: there are some puffins, though)


• I have wrapped and posted off the first present - to the USA, with all that that entails in wrapping without the use of sellotape.


• And I have now experienced Newcastle's Winter Festival / Glow, which is Art, with electric lighting (there's an article about it in the Guardian, though I note that the Grauniad is still having trouble telling the Swing Bridge from its elbow): the Lit & Phil is participating, with a pink spotlight trained on one of their many marble busts, casting a shadow of his profile onto the window blind.


• And I have wrestled with Amazon's ordering system, which allows me the illusion of having found what I am looking for and only later, at the checkout stage, tells me that of course this isn't in stock, and that comes from somewhere else, and we'll dispatch the other separately...

And I feel quite exhausted, just listing it all. Time for bed.