Happy holidays

This weekend has passed by in a bit of a blur, and I am inordinately glad that I do not have to return to work this side of 2008. I have managed to eat and drink a fair amount in the past few days and I now feel confident that my stomach will be fully limbered up by Tuesday, allowing for maximum gluttony while it is considered socially legitimate to eat until one is unable to do much except massage one's own intestine in the hope of facilitating digestion. Personally, I find that sitting at a slight left or right incline can inexplicably expedite this process, though I am sure that medical professionals would scoff at such pseudo-quackery.

Today was both enjoyable and efficient, one of the best day combinations currently on offer. I met up with Katherine in Hammersmith where we performed possibly the most adroit last minute Christmas shopping ever attempted, making it through Primark, Habitat, M&S and WH Smith's in just under two hours, followed by a delicious lunch and our reward of Pinot Grigio. My only minor hiccup had occurred in Smith's. I had selected my desired item in under a minute and then sped-walked to the queue, only to find it snaking through the magazine racks into the middle distance somewhere north of Lancaster. The till-workers seemed insufficient in number and, with the awaiting Katherine adding to my impatience, I made the decision to search out an alternative queue. I found the DVD tills at the same time as three other customers and although I made it clear I wanted us to unite in a 'first come, first served' fashion, a lady in a red coat decided to plump for the 'two tills, two queues' method - one which I detest. I detested it even more when the man in front of me revealed his haul with what I believe was a touch of vindictive glee - he was purchasing at least 37 DVDs, each of which required the well-meaning staff member to burrow into the filing cabinet behind him, find the correct disk and place it in the case before scanning it. I am not normally a queue-mover, on the whole preferring to stick these things out, but immediately I knew there was no competition and I reluctantly took my place behind the redcoat who was oozing sympathy like pus. She then realised that she had forgotten High School Musical 2 and rushed off to find it, bleating apologies with all the sincerity of a hairdresser with ADHD. Sadly the till-man wouldn't serve me in the interim so I sat there thinking about The Power of Now and hoping that steam wasn't actually coming out of my nostrils. Props go to Katherine for only phoning me once to ask politely how I was doing. I could easily have learned Cantonese while she'd been waiting for me, so her calm demeanour was impressive.

This evening I have been feeling very festive in new Primark lounge trousers (£4) and sheepskin slippers. Having derided our requests to play games, my father was unable to resist the clatter of the Boggle cubes and the three of us spent an animated 45 minutes playing a new version of the game, with added old age. This involved my mother reading out the list of words she'd found, around half of which were actually on the board. Of those that were valid, she would generally have written about three of them down more than once. When she realised her score was low, she would then pretend to be searching her piece of paper for more words, while frantically scanning the letters on the board to find last minute options. Dad, meanwhile, attempted to pass 'moppet' and 'doper' off as genuine words. And I won. Tomorrow I will wrap presents, go for a walk and peel many root vegetables. La vita é bella.