I’ve completely lost track of the days. It took me a very long time to work out it’s Monday this evening. It doesn’t help that the Radio Times just calls today Christmas Eve, which I suppose is more relevant.

Having dad stay means I’m getting up at a decent time every day when he walks through to the kitchen to make some breakfast. He even fed Oscar this morning, which for someone who doesn’t like cats is quite an achievement. On a slightly less positive note, it means I’m still pretty tired.

I don’t know what the cat was up to last night, but at about half three it jumped from somewhere - the window sill, probably - and landed on the floor right next to where I was sleeping with an enormous bang. Probably woke up the downstairs people, too. Anyhow, he seems to be happy enough being here at the moment. He’s adopted a chair as his own and slept on it almost from the moment he arrived. If he’s this well behaved until he leaves on Thursday / Friday I’ll consider myself lucky.

He’s not eaten anything today - not even dad’s breakfast.

I did my best to be creative most of the day. I baked in the morning so I was ready for Boxing day, and then sat down with the notebook and tried to sketch out the plot of my book while dad went out to the car wash. I’m up to chapter three, reworking my original eight-chapter plan. It’s not easy. I’ve been thinking about it for far too long, I think, and now it’s just too big and complicated in my head. It’s going to take longer to plan than to write and I’m wondering if I should put it to one side for a while and write something else to get it out of my system and come back to it this time next year when it will be fresh again.

Hmmm.

Paul had a half-day at work, so I was glad to break from the unproductive planning and pick him up from the station. We went to his parents’ for tea and mince pies, and so we could swap presents. I gave them their book, and they gave me a nice big parcel in red paper. Impossible to guess what’s inside by feeling. Tubular in parts, though.

I dropped him off home after we left, and he came around for dinner - rather messy omlettes (a bit of a problem with my egg to water ratio) - while we watched the usual pre-Christmas jolities on the TV. Banzai Christmas Special was the highlight.

We did the washing up when it finished, then went to the pub to meet with a rather merry Trevor and Jon. They had just finished their traditional Christmas Eve fish pie, apparently with a bottle of wine.

It was rather empty there. We got a space in the car park, which is quite an achievement on a normal night. On Christmas Eve, doubly so. We got served right away and one end - the end furthest from the music - was practically empty. It’s gone a long way downhill since the managers changed a couple of years ago.

Apparently it was heaving in there last night. They’d had some sort of cabaret, but there was a door charge and it still closed at half ten. I hate it when they do that. It’s rarely an act you want to see, so you just end up payng to get into your regular pub and have a few drinks with your friends. The last time I got caught up in it all it was a stripper, who stormed off the stage after a lighting and music calamity.

Home late to a mewing Oscar.

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