So little time, so much to do...

If anyone is still out there, you may have noticed I've been rather quiet. (oh good I hear you say).

The main reason was I was up to my eyes in my pesky deadlines.

I can now reveal that one of them is for my first novel - the allotment book is going to make into print next autumn, published by Harper Collins, it's going to be called Pastures New. Which is all very exciting. But having spent eight years writing pretty much for myself it's a wee bit scary suddenly having to live up to people's expectations. Every line I wrote now seems crass beyond belief, and in the end I just had to send it off otherwise I thought I'd be tinkering forever.

My other deadline is for a children's story called Awkward Annie, which will be published by Evans, although I'm not quite sure when. I'm really pleased about this as the character is based on no 2, so not unnaturally, I'm rather fond of her...

In between all of this of course, I have been attending all the various Christmas events for the children.

So far we've had:

No 2 as a cool wise man wearing shades. I know I'm biased, but she and her confederates stole the show. Sadly I don't have a picture as years of returning from these things with crappy pictures of my offspring means I tend not to bring a camera these days.

While we were doing this Spouse went with nos1 & 3 to be ecowarriors and cut down our Christmas tree (along with about twenty others - the deal is you help clear the heathland and then take a free tree home. Or four in our case. Spouse got one for mil and the kids decided they needed one each in their bedrooms. Right....)


Last Tuesday saw nos 1&2 at their carol concert. The church where this is held has very little vision so I was lucky to spot no 2 at all. No 1 surprised me by leaping up halfway through the service, to do something, I knew not wot. It turned out she'd lit a candle.

They do a repeat in the evening to which I normally don't go, but as the littlies are a bit bigger now, we all went on a moonlit walk through the allotments, which was actually rather nice. I felt a momentary pang when I realised this is no 1's last Christmas effort at her current school, till I realised I still have six more performances to go. Poor no 4, I'll be cheering when it gets to her last show...

No 4 put in an appearance as a villager last Wednesday. She had to say WE WANT PEACE AND QUIET, which she did very loudly. She then complained that she only had one line...

Last up is no 3 who is narrating in a Christingle service tonight.

Then that's us done and dusted till Christmas Eve when we go to the family service at 5pm.

So I am thoroughly Christmassed out, but in quite a nice way.

At the weekend Spouse and I did some last minute panic shopping as we were all out of ideas for everyone. Nos 2&3 have copied out the entire contents of the Argos catalogue for their Santa lists. I told no 2 she wasn't getting the Bratz house, because a) it's too expensive and b) as Spouse rightly points out, it looks like a bordello. However, her cool response was well, Santa doesn't pay for presents does he? Oh damn...

We also had the surreal experience of singing carols at high speed in our local pub on Sunday night. It's great fun, but not such a good idea on a Sunday, as neither of us felt very clever yesterday....

And we still have a week's heavy drinking to go...

Thanks to a heavy cold I can't even be virtuous and say I'm exercising.

But I have done this...

Never one to miss a trick me. I've just posted this on You Tube. The soundtrack should of course be Running on Empty, but Vivaldi can't sue!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVV7aXpg8B0


Happy Christmas!