countdown to Christmas

I relocated the electric zapper to my greenhouse, standing it next to the trays of violated Muscari, and it caught a mouse last night and another the night before.  The mouse problem is getting out of hand.  The Systems Administrator appeared this afternoon chattering with indignation and clutching a bottle of acrylic resin that had been chewed in the workshop.  They are everywhere, and what sort of mouse eats acrylic anyway?  Buying each other electric traps for Christmas, gift wrapping available as highlighted on the News Quiz but you read it here first, is beginning to seem not such a stupid idea after all.

Fortunately it is now too late to buy anything.  Or at least, if we suddenly realise we are short of some vital component of Christmas lunch then one of us will have to brave the scrum in the supermarkets tomorrow, but it's too late to post anything.  If any cards arrive tomorrow from people we didn't send one to that's tough, nothing to be done about it.  Likewise gifts.  The Christmas tree is decorated and gently shedding needles, the pot of hazel twigs is up, the cards are arranged around the sitting room, and the house is as clean as it's going to get.  Tomorrow the SA will bring in the holly and ivy, which must not be done before Christmas Eve, and I will investigate whether the new tablecloth needs ironing before we can use it.

And that's it.  Barring emergencies we're in lockdown until Saturday.  My parents have been to lunch, and friends are not due for supper until next week.  Tomorrow we will eat steak and listen to Christmas music.  On Thursday we will open presents, eat chicken, and listen to Christmas music, and the SA will have to watch the Christmas Day episode of Downton because it will be impossible to avoid plot spoilers on Boxing Day.  On Boxing Day I might go and trickle oxalic acid on the bees if the weather's right, and maybe prune the grape vine before the sap can start to rise, though this has been such a mild autumn that goodness knows what the sap is doing already, but I don't intend to go anywhere.  On Saturday the SA is going to the rugby and normal life resumes.

It is quite nice to take a few days off.  I contemplated going out into the garden today, after calling on a beekeeping friend for cheque co-signatures and walnut shortbread, but it was very windy, and I told myself that for the sake of one afternoon's gardening I might as well give my sprained arm an extra couple of days to recover.  The truth is that I was in idle holiday mode.