sheldrake

In retrospect, I think yesterday went downhill when I put the telly on to wrap my presents in front of... only I didn't wrap any presents, I slouched under a blanket watching Catherine Cookson's A Dinner of Herbs on UKTV History. Thank god my dad phoned to complain at me, or I might have watched Bugsy Malone as well.

This year's Christmas comfort reading is The Children of Green Knowe. It's working a treat. And now when I read it I remember the real house. Here's the website, if you want to go there. You can arrange an appointment, and Lucy Boston's daughter-in-law will give you the guided tour. It's very cool. You can touch the rocking horse omg!

A letter to Neil Gaiman's blog really made me cringe today. ...I told her that I don't have any brothers, just sisters, and that I didn't know the gentleman she had named, and that I was sorry. Ooh. Ouch. Not quite the same thing, obviously, but someone once contacted my cousin, who is a record producer, pretending they were me. It was during his brief period of being mildly well-known, after he worked with Madonna and had a record in the charts. I still have no idea who the person was, or where they got my name, or anything! Weird. Quite fun for me though, heh.

I like stories about really bad Christmasses, they make me feel better. Here's a sad little memoir by Will Self. The last Christmas we had spent in my natal home, two years before, had been distinguished by my brother and I having a stand-up fist fight in the street, smiting one another until we fell into the privet – a small suburban nightmare.