Next stage ...

What an odd day this has been! It was pitch dark outside at 7.30am, and didn't seem properly daylight until after 10 o'clock, when I took the chance between battering showers to nip out to the car and drive to Pilates class - it was almost worth it that my lift wasn't going today, as it meant I only had to run down the garden in the absurdly balmy dampness.  Yesterday morning, just after breakfast, I felt so exhausted by the prospect of all I had to do that I told another member of the class who goes to our church that I didn't think I'd be going to Pilates at all, but by the end of the carol service I was so full of adrenaline that I challenged her to be there and she was - but you should have heard the grunting and groaning as we held planks or tried to bend over! As for my balance - shot to pieces. Must do better.

Slightly revived by coffee when I got home, I went on to do my Italian and have lunch, which had the effect of sending me to sleep over yesterday's papers. Then, however, I sprang into action (sort of) - we retrieved the tree from the loft, found the decorations, untangled the new lights, got the wee ladder out ... and then I decorated the tree, discovering that the new lights are sad affairs compared with their predecessors (ditched this year because their adaptor showed a tendency to sag in the socket and become alarmingly hot) and also that we'd not bought a big enough set. I dare say I'll get used to them. 

Not for the first time, I think, I'm posting a photo of one of our original baubles, a glass one bought in Glasgow for Christmas 1970, the first of our married life. It's the only one of the three with the dent in them to have survived intact, but they're all on there, along with several that arrived courtesy of our boys when they were small. We have a very uncool Christmas tree - our offspring do much more stylish affairs - but I reckon at our age this is just fine. And because it's no longer a real tree, I don't have the additional horror of allergic eyes to put up with ...

I made chilli for tea, had a bit of my daughter-in-law's chocolate cake for pudding, and managed to stay awake to watch last night's episode of His Dark Materials. I never cared for the third book in the trilogy; I think the second, The Subtle Knife, is the best. But the bear is pretty marvellous ...

No more rabbiting on. I'm half dead again. Getting past this - and there's more to do tomorrow. 'Night!