Nearly Christmas

Christmas Eve tomorrow, then. Where's the month gone?

Yesterday Emily and I wrapped up everyone else's Christmas presents and played various Harry Potter inspired pretends for, oooh, hours and hours. Good job I like Harry Potter or I'd have left home a long time ago ;-)

Today, Emily's friend Kayleigh has been round to play since lunchtime; her little sisters and brother came in for a brief play too before Trish took them off to brave the supermarket. Eeep. As I type this, the two big girls are constructing something complicated from Ello down at the other end of the hall. Such concentration!!

Last night, at about half one in the morning, I was sitting here working and I heard breaking glass; it sounded like it came from right outside this window, which is at the back of the house. I hadn't yet set the house alarm, so that was doubly worrying. I rushed off to set the alarm, pronto, and came back to see what was happening. You know when you're listening for something so intently you daren't move or even breathe in case you miss it? Must have stood stock still for about 20 minutes; I was half convinced someone was trying to get in downstairs and I kept hearing noises. I was really worried; not certain enough there was anything going on to warrant phoning the police or anything drastic, but far too concerned to go to sleep. It's a very old house that makes lots of noise at the best of times, but of course once something's set your imagination off, it's no longer the normal creaks and groans, it's bound to be a mad serial killer breaking his way in.....In the end, Jon gallantly volunteered to stay up so I could go to bed. And stay up he did - right through the night!

This meant that by the time I emerged, bleary eyed this morning, the Christmas Fairy had been and all of Emily's remaning presents and stocking stuff were beautifully wrapped up ;-)) Which was a huge weight off my mind and means I can now finally relax and enjoy the next couple of days. We never did find any broken glass anywhere. Decidedly strange.

We've decided against going to the carol service in Lincoln Cathedral tomorrow after all. We've just had enough of "doing things" now - it's been an extremely busy December, we've hardly stopped and now we just want to be at home together. Emily and I will be spending most of tomorrow up to our elbows in flour anyway, as we have three lots of last minute gifts to bake for family members. Every year until now we've been to the village carol service, but I think we'll even give that one a miss too. I'm looking forward to a peaceful (if busy) Christmas Eve without having to check the time and see where we're supposed to be and what we're supposed to be doing and with whom!

Oh, and Merlin's had a bit of a repreive from the vet. She had insisted that he could only have prescription mushy food until next Friday, but the poor thing has been so starving hungry! Yesterday we asked if it would be OK to give him some freshly cooked chicken mixed with plain rice and she relented and said yes (after we'd told her how he was so desperate he even clawed his way into a packet of scones when nobody was looking and had half eaten one!!). So he's a much more full-up chappy now and will even get a tiny portion of his usual festive turkey on Christmas Day :-))