1. Eating cake, gossiping and stepping Nana through sending a text message.
2. There is really nothing to do but enjoy the irony of a teenager criticising your taste in music because a particular track is 'just noise'.
3. Bettany and I are looking at her baby photos. We know who took the picture because they are reflected in her pupils.
2. Our gingerbread has not spread too much, and the experimental stained glass effect has worked tolerably well. I like the smaller star biscuits best; but I wish I could find our heart-shaped cutter.
1. A plan quickly made for a hot chocolate tomorrow.
2. Once I get going with Christmas shopping, and start chatting to people, finding gifts seems to get easier. I notice that I've done a fair bit already.
3. One of those days when a bitter wind carries half frozen rain into every gap -- two grumpy children home from school and wrapped in blankets and duvets.
1. Charles the Martyr tends towards high church, and the scent of incense and furniture polish draws a murmured, 'This smells like heaven,' from a dad herding small children through the door. The church is looking particularly twinkly and charming decked out for the Christmas Tree festival. Nick and I are very pleased we managed to come along in the spare hour before I catch my train.
2. At a table is the actual editor of The Fortean Times, and we get to chat with him for a moment.
3. Uncanny Con, the conference for the podcast Uncanny, has taken The Royal Festival Hall this year, and the scale is quite something. I love best those pin-drop moments when people in the 2,000-strong audience share their paranormal experiences. I'm also pretty excited to see footage of a visit to a horribly haunted bothy, and to see the man who experienced said haunting.
1. I try my new coat, and it is a relief -- warm and waterproof, not worn out, and properly fitting.
2. We drink mulled wine in a winter market hut served by jovial gents who would probably be more cheery if a gusty wind didn't keep blowing drizzle in under their umbrella, and if the roof was less drippy. The mulled wine fortifies us enough that we can enjoy a women's choir on the bandstand and support a local family facing the aftermath of meningitis.
3. After dark, we walk out and look for Christmas trees displayed in windows -- we're still easing into the festivities, what with one thing and another, and it was encouraging to see others who are further along.
1. There are venison steaks to look forward to at lunch.
2. We are very brave and together try a bit of stand-up comedy training. The session is so fully of silly games and so much like play that we almost forget our fear.
3. It's a clear night, well supplied with cold and distant stars.
1. At coffee time there are gingerbread chocolate digestives, which are surprisingly good.
2. My eldest has been off sick for a few days. I have to shake and pull him awake at teatime: his friend has called round with a bag of Doritos to cheer him up and is waiting awkwardly on the sofa, all puffy coat and long legs.
3. I open the jar of steeped apricots that I made a few weeks back with Anna. It's like a glass of winter sunshine -- very sweet and cheering and bracing. It's a Nigel Slater recipe and in the preamble, he talks about making a welcoming drink for oneself, not just for guests, and it seems like a good self-care approach.