vailian

Tonight will be my first venture on stage since my neck started acting up about 3 weeks ago. Hansel and Gretel at the Opera. I am alternately dreading it and looking forward to it, I am not sure what it will be like sitting for so long, but I am bored of not working.

It is Christmas Eve, and this habitual procrastinator, true to form, has yet to buy a single present.
Well, that is not true, I did get one for the Ossie, a nice Turkish backgammon set. It was very hard to find one that was not made of imitation wood with the playing board printed on nasty plastic foil. I finally convinced the elderly Turkish man in the 4th import-export shop I visited to sell me the one he had behind the counter (it may well have been his own personal one) by telling him that my girlfriend had an allergy to plastic.
Anyhow this board is the right size and all the decoration and board surface are real inlays. Now if I only knew how to play the stupid game!
Bought a Christmas tree, a small one with roots attached... if I am lucky I can get it to grow on my roof garden. Last time I tried it, it didn't work and died.
It will be the first Christmas without any of the kids at home. Kind of strange really. J is in America, L is between London and Spain, and CC will be with her mother and grandparents.
Must try to get to the shops at some point today (I have some students coming this afternoon) or there won't be anything to eat in the house until the middle of next week (the shops here close early this afternoon and don't reopen until the 27th).