Christmas hols begin

Current work: nonfic and Modern Heat
Listening to: sound of dog snoring
Reading: Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night - very interesting… and I am so envious that he has a barn as his library. Mine is too small and too cluttered. (Yes, OK, so I’m terribly untidy and I need to Try Harder next year.) Various lightbulbs going off…

It’s the school Christmas hols, so blogging may be a bit erratic for the next couple of weeks. This is the time of year when lots of plans are made but they have to be flexible – we were going out for dinner at my local best friend’s on Saturday, but she was hit by the evil lurgy, so we ended up having fish and chips instead at DH’s brother’s. (The kids had a whale of a time playing Monopoly.)

I’ve been working on my nonfic and finding out amazing things I didn’t know about Norfolk. Have been thinking about the fiction, but today am too dog tired to create anything at all. This is to do with DH getting up in the middle of the night and accidentally letting the dog sneak upstairs. One huge spaniel sitting on you is not the best of ways to be woken. Especially at 1.30 am. And could I get back to sleep afterwards? (To add insult to injury, dog is snoring his head off behind me right now. As DH muttered at 1.30 am, dog is becoming more obstinate with age.)

Other than that, have been talking to my very talented photographer friend Steve Denby and sorted out which pics I want for my office. (OK, so I’m greedy. But these particular two are inspiring.)

And also had a visitor I do not want to see in my garden again. Remember my mouse problem from two years back? Go up a rodent size. (Wait, no, that’s a hamster. Go up a wild verminous rodent size.) He was actually very pretty and he looked remarkably clean, especially his dainty little pink feet. But. Rattus norvegicus in my garden is not acceptable. (Norway link? Er, not in my M&B.) Our council’s lovely environmental health team has booked someone to come and see us tomorrow.

I’ve probably read too much MR James (well, it’s the season for ghost stories, and MRJ stories are wonderful – ditto AM Burrage), because I keep thinking of the thing I half-saw dropping from the bird feeder last week, when it was still dark. And I mean dropping. With a thud. (It would’ve been a soft, deathly thud, had I been able to hear it.) My imagination has gone a bit into overdrive. The thing I saw was bigger than a rat and could’ve been a cat. Gingery fur… birds don’t drop, they fly upwards, so it had to be a mammal – yes? (Note to self: do not think of The Ash-Tree.) I’ve written some fairly scary modern ghost stories in my time – including for Virago – and this stuff is really not conducive to sleep…

Plans for today: grocery delivery, and meanwhile play board games with the cherubs. And eat chocolate to take my mind off Ratty and The Unnamed Thing.