shewhomust | Advancing crabwise towards Christmas (Reply)

We have a tree: indecently early, it seems to me, but we were at Sainsbury's, and there were trees outside of a pleasing size and rotundity, and it seemed pointless to be stubborn and insist on waiting until the last minute, when there would be no choice and we'd be landed with a tree that was both too tall and too scraggy. It's not as if they don't cut them all at the same time anyway. So we have a tree, sitting on the back step, waiting until we are ready to bring it indoors - provided the wind doesn't carry it off first.

The overseas cards have been posted, and a random collection of others: so we can claim to have started sending the cards. This is not enough, and there will be a mad panic later. Likewise, several presents have been bought, and I have identified a time (Thursday afternoon) when I might conceivably manage to go shopping in Newcastle. This is not enough...

I have done the first stage of making the Christmas cake: and since this is a complicated process, involving a cut-up of two separate recipes, not to mention an element of whim and improvisation, it might usefully have a post to itself, so that next year I won't have to do the calculations from scratch all over again.