Are the Days Getting Longer?

I'm not talking about daylight hours. I'm talking about the amount of time I seem to be rushing around from pillar to post. Yep, it must be Christmas.

I asked Simon for one particular gift for Christmas, and I even was so kind as to let him know how much it costs and where he could find it. Not in a nagging I TOLD him kind of way though. It was in the way he asked and I responded. Unfortunately that also meant that I had to go get it myself.

See, this year Simon has turned into Scrooge. A few days ago, Lynn and Steve came over, and I overheard Simon say, "I hate Christmas". Before that he told me he wasn't looking forward to it this year. Fair enough. I'd never force him to like something even if that were possible.

But I happen to love Christmas. I love preparing for it more than I love the day itself. I love the shopping, the planning meals, the decorating. I even love the crowds in the stores. I don't mind queueing, as long as the other people in the queue aren't horrible nasty people. There was one girl today who got onto the tram with her mother and her baby. It was obviously her baby because her mother was very pregnant -- too pregnant to have given birth in the last three months. They were blocking the doors with their pram, and when some of us wanted to get off at our stop, the girl said, in a loud, rude voice, "Why can't you people use the other doors?" Her mother was horrified. I felt like saying, "Because we're packed in here like sardines and can't get to the other door". But I settled for giving her a nasty look. I didn't want to add to her mother's horror.

But anyway, I spent most of the day carrying around my present. It was a lot heavier than I th0ught it would be, and it only just fit into my gym locker. The stretching exercises in Tae Kwon Do relieved some of my muscle aches, and then I had to carry it home, with one stop at Marks and Spencers for food items I couldn't have bought earlier in the day.

Am I finished with my running and rushing? No chance. Simon is going to make Jack's birthday cake for Friday, and he wants coloured icing for it. It's not something you can just dash into Tesco or Morrison's for. It's specialty cake decorating icing. He did say he'd go to town tomorrow to get it, but only if I went with him. Well, if he's in a Scrooge-mood, he'll be perfectly nasty by the time we find somewhere to park, and he won't use the bus. So I've offered to go by tram to the retail park where Hobbycraft is, then get back on the tram to go to the gym.

The Christmas spirit is just gushing through my veins.