Giving the Joy of Wellness

Boots just sent me an email. They were very persuasive. Apparently I should be 'Giving the Gift of Wellness " to my besties this Christmas. Their helpful suggestions included yoga gear, fitness equipment or or a 'Make Your Soul Happy' Tin.

Fuck off Boots. Whatever it is that makes my soul happy won't be found in a tin. I can't even go Christmas shopping in John Lewis these days without hearing their newly installed Peleton bike ring out it's cajoling "Good Job Ashley" on every floor. Ashley can go take a hike.

I hadn't planned to have my Pre-Christmas meltdown today but it reared it's ugly head a few days early this year. I can usually make it to the 20th before going ballistic over the empty beer cans , piles of trainers and discarded takeaway cartons littering every floor in the house. It's great having the boys back home but every now and then I need to remind them that I don't want to live in a shit tip and they're not slumming in a student house any more.

Husband is up a ladder pinning lights to the front porch and I'm re-planting the tubs by the doorstep with a few pots of festive cheer as if anyone even cares or notices. The tree is up - all miserable 5ft of it with it's fake needles smelling of nothing. Nobody can be bothered to decorate it . I can only think of the palaver of getting it all down again in 3 weeks time. What a miserable sod I am.

Still, the Christmas booze is in the house and I've made a Christmas cake despite telling myself that it's not worth the effort as nobody eats it apart from me. I've even managed to bag one of the elusive Christmas turkey pick-up slots from M&S. I was thinking of auctioning it off to the highest bidder as they're as rare as hen's ( or should that be turkey's ) teeth this year.

We're all boostered up to the eyeballs and I even wrote a Christmas Covid Poem ...

Lateral thinking
and convivial drinking
made my world a happier place.
Now lateral flow tests
and an absence of guests
Is the norm, plus a mask on my face.

All set for the BIG day. Actually the big day is a bit of a damp squid (again) as both the boys are working and I'm already dreading that wretched Twixtmas period when everyone keeps asking "Is it Tuesday? " or "What day was yesterday ?"

In a desperate attempt to inject some festive fun into my life I bought a ticket to go and see The Nutcracker at The Royal Opera House. My bargain basement ticket cost £7. I might as well have been in the basement given my 'view' of the stage. I could hear a lot of ballet pumps thumping on the stage floorboards but couldn't see a thing apart from the curtain call at the end. I did have a very good view of the orchestra pit though , especially the Clarinet player who must have endeared herself to her fellow musicians by spending most of her time blowing her nose or coughing into a hanky. When the final curtain eventually came down I could almost hear her sight of relief at the prospect of getting home to a waiting Lemsip. 

Every child in the auditorium seemed to have either croup or some hacking cough or other. I donned a second facemask and tried not to breathe. A jolly fine time was had by all, topped off by a cancelled train home and a carriage full of entitled mask refuseniks. Don't you just love Christmas ? 


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