We’ve reached the stage of proceedings now at which even I – specialist in holding over the merely urgent until it’s passed through acute and critical, and arrived at moribund – can no longer keep pretending that it’s not going to be Christmas in just over a fortnight. Since kicking Vaughan Williams into touch, I’ve even – whisper it – bought some Christmas presents….
Today I started, desultorily, on the biggest job of the season, which is bottoming out the conservatory so that the Christmas tree can go up. Traditionally this is supposed to happen before Child One’s birthday, which is on Thursday (the tradition having started in the year of her birth, when I felt the first twinges of what would shortly turn into a 33-hour labour while leaning over to hang a decoration on the tree). But she won’t be here till Saturday, so as long as I get it done by then she’ll never know that I’m letting standards slip.
The extent of my conservatory preparation today was throwing out a few dead pot plants and moving the others up onto the dining table, to allow for cleaning. In the process I discovered this Schlumbergera – which we’re going to call a Christmas cactus, even though technically it isn’t – flowering quietly away, all by itself, in a dark and dusty corner. Celebrating it seemed the least I could do in the circumstances, and as I’m very committed to doing the least I can do, here it is, in all its pink prettiness. I note that the theme of today’s Tiny Tuesday challenge is ‘black and white’ – but what can I say? I’m a wild and crazy guy.
Flowering cactus aside, the big excitement of the day was being invited by my GP’s surgery to make an appointment for a shingles vaccine – and then, after I’d navigated their labyrinthine triage system, being asked if I’d like to go this afternoon. This was all a bit of a surprise, because the NHS criteria for awarding this vaccine appear to have been devised by Lewis Carroll, and I’d come to believe that I was never going to be judged eligible. Anyway, I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so off I went, and if the nurse’s first question – “Have you ever had an anaphylactic reaction?” – was a bit discombobulating, and some of the follow-up side-effect warnings weren’t too cheering either, I was clear that I’d far rather put up with a bit of discomfort now (though not actual anaphylaxis, obviously) than get shingles somewhere down the line, so I went ahead and had the jab. I’ve now got a very sore arm, a sore throat, and a headache, but if that’s as bad as it gets, I’m happy.
R: L2, C2, D12.
