A Small Mortgage, A Predicted Dalai Lama and Festive Tribulations

Today I spent the equivalent of a small mortgage on postage for Christmas parcels and cards. Yes, I know it is self-inflicted and I possess the ability to reduce the cost but I have covered the whys and wherefores in the previous blog and I have no intention to change this unless bankruptcy and ensuing poverty dictate otherwise. I still have palpitations at the Post Office when the counter assistant announces the final total even though I try to steel myself for the forthcoming shock by gripping the counter, knuckles tensed and white.  There is one bright note amongst this Yuletide trauma. A guilty one but nonetheless one from which I derive some sneaky pleasure. This is the one time of the year when I exact revenge on every person who ever came before me in a Post Office queue and who dithered and took ages to be served. I am ashamed but secretly revel in the sighs of others behind me as I post several parcels to various parts of the globe, a myriad cards to various countries each requiring weighing and different postage costs and then deliver a final crushing blow by asking for a few hundred stamps. It's almost worth the not inconsiderable cost.

One would think that with cards written and parcels posted my spirits would be lightened. Sadly not so. There is the Christmas tree to assemble - yes, it's an artificial one, lifelike but artificial. The ensuing adornment with tasteful baubles and lights not to mention the various bits of  candlestick dressing etc. This must be presaged with a serious bit of hoovering and dusting. I often wonder why I bother to do it because I am never here over the Festive Season so I only enjoy the end result for a week at the most. My first task on returning home in early January is to set to and take the whole lot down again. My trusted neighbour who sweeps junk mail away from my door while I am absent sees more of the finished result than I do.

And so to the inevitable and predicted Dalai Lama.  In my last blog I mentioned my reluctance to weed my address database. True to form, a card arrived today from someone I hadn't heard from for the last few years and who had been "weeded" only a few days ago...

As if all this were not enough, on Friday, somewhere between 07.30hrs and 13.00hrs the latest instalment in the sprung divan base saga arrives. I hope to God this one comes unscathed...