Coincidentally the latest newsletter from the Rosemary Conley School of Slimming gives tips on surviving the Christmas season diet intact. They include:
not having butter with your bread;
opting for the less creamy dishes;
and not eating the chocolate mint at the end of the meal (thereby saving 35 calories).
I'll obviously be doing all of those ...
Then it's home on Thursday, work on Friday and up to Derby on Saturday to see the in-laws. With a family meal out on the Saturday. Coming home on Sunday in time for me to 'entertain' a group of elderly men and women.
Some people from Linden do a monthly tea for the elderly and, as it's the Christmas party tea on Sunday, they're making it a bit longer and providing entertainment in the form of someone reading poems and me reading ... something. I'm not yet decided.
I think it will be my Joyce Grenfell take-off, a monologue in a primary teacher's voice as she tries to explain Christmas to a group of young children. The good thing is that, as they're elderly, they will remember the original Joyce Grenfell monologues; the bad thing is that they have varying stages of deafness so may not hear it.
Now I'm wondering if it was prophetic giving George his name: did I 'know' when we named him that I would frequently be saying, 'George, don't do that!' (One of the best remembered lines from Ms Grenfell's schoolteacher monologues.)