2000 and Whine

Two weeks until Christmas and I feel about as festive as an undertaker in Ungava.
Dark when I wake up, dark when I get home. All my good intentions to walk in are dashed. I have a bucket full of excuses, the weather, my shoes, the time, when I get to Battersea Bridge and that number 19 is nudging its way into the traffic I’ve whipped out my Freedom Pass, negotiated the stairs and taken my seat at the front of the bus before the ding-ding of the bell has been dung.
The rain lashed the windows this morning. I could barely see the displays in Gucci, Fendhi and Louis Vuitton. Not that it mattered I can barely fit into my dungarees let alone a Chanel chemise.
LBC Towers was an adjustment as all my team are on holiday. Breaking in a new bunch requires patience and trust It’s as difficult for them as it is for me.
Today we pulled off teenage terminations, airport runways and climate change finishing off with hair loss from stress. All my co-workers were fab – WELL DONE US.
After the show I made a couple of calls declined dinner at The Ivy and a film at The Charlotte Street Hotel and set off home. I need a little time for my self as the rest of the week is chokka.

I put up my umbrella, which raged against the gale blowing in from The Haymarket. Walked through to Piccadilly and waited for the Number 19. Making snap decisions is what I’m good at so instead of hanging around in the rain with Italian Tourists I took the number 22 to Beaufort Street battled over the Bridge dodging painful rain. My umbrella blew inside out, the bottoms of my trousers dragged in the puddles and the back of my neck froze. The Thames was high, active and belicose.
My lovely Mrs. L had been to ‘do’, the carpet vacuumed, the floor washed and the pillows plumped. The flat felt neat and homely.
Jim arrived back having dodging big traffic from Hammersmith. On his motor bike it only takes half and hour to get to the Lyric from here.
I made cabbage soup. Sweated onion and garlic, added one whole Savoy cabbage, one slice of bacon, some left over ham, two fancy stock cubes and water to cover. I threw in some delicious sausages as well. The last thing to go into the bubbling broth was freshly cracked black pepper and caraway seeds. It smelt like a kitchen in Kiev.
It’s now 21.40 Jim’s watching LIFE, David Attenbrough’s voice as soothing as buttercup linctus. Laurie and Jessie are in bed, the cat ‘Cashmere’ is curled up between them. I made fried rice with pomegranate molasses as an accompaniment. Bowl after bowl went down a treat in front of Corrie. I made enough to feed a company of wolves, or should I say thespians, there’s not one grain of rice left. Well that’s actors and children of actors for you….
I long for some respite from the inside of my head. It helps knowing that John Lennon went through a patch when he got depressed about being fat, wrote some killer songs and got through it.
I’m not going to write songs but I am going to do some work on the memoir.
Well why not by the time it gets published it will be a posthumous success and all the kids will have money to pay off their student loans.
This year it’s goats, watering wells and education in Ethiopia for Yuletide, better that than a scented candle that costs the price of a school house in Addis Abada.
There was a geezer on University Challenge called Christopher Christmas – why would you do that to a child? Although to be fair they probably knew what they were doing that Mr. & Mrs. Christmas. It could have been worse they could have called him
Meredith.
‘No, we call him Merry for short.’ shouts Mrs. Christmas over the mince pies.
I can talk our daughter sounds like a Jewish Country and Western singer, thank God she’s abbreviated herself to BBBywater.
so on tht nt ill sy gdnght.