It rained for most of the day. Saturday was always forecast to be foul, so I had it down as the day to write our Christmas cards, which are now for the most part finished apart from the ones that need a letter to go in with them, and those where I had a hideous moment of doubt about the names of people's children. Every third small child you meet nowadays seems to be called Jack or Lucy, but I am sure that getting it wrong would cause their parents grave offence. And I didn't buy enough stamps. Maybe it would be easier to be on Facebook and simply post a picture of us and Our Ginger wearing reindeer antlers, with a vague expression of goodwill to all who know us.
My round of Christmas parties has pretty much come to an end, though the Systems Administrator still has a couple of ex work reunion lunches to go. I am not sure I am very good at parties anyway. I enjoy talking to people I know and like, or can find a common thread of interest with, but that doesn't always happen. An article in the Guardian claimed at the top that it would tell you how to talk to anyone, but the suggestion for striking up a conversation with strange grown ups was to wear unusual earrings or carry a novelty handbag. I couldn't see myself making a chat about why on earth I had a bag shaped like a giant expensive KitKat dangling from my wrist last for more than about two and a half seconds, and I shouldn't think that most of the people I'd actually like if I knew them wanting to talk about it either.
A different Guardian article had a more useful tip on coping as an introvert at parties, which was to ask the other person a reasonably open question and let them do the talking. That can work very well, though it is going to be more interesting if they are home on leave from their job at a polar research station or have an amusing dog. The shocking level of private school fees and London house prices can demand the same special polite face needed for the slot before the interval in a concert where the musicians sneak in one of those pieces of modern music that only three people would buy a ticket to go and hear, if that was all there was on the programme.
At one of the parties we went to the hosts unexpectedly sprung a quiz on us all at half past ten. Or at least, it was unexpected to us because it was the first year they'd invited us, but I gathered it was a tradition. Our team won the general knowledge round, striking lucky on some of the more obscure questions with the SA knowing what a baldrick* was. To balance things out we came last in the music round. Way too much disco.
I am cooking again tonight and have made pasta from scratch. I don't have a pasta machine, but thought after seeing the two greedy Italians rolling it out in a camper van on the telly that it couldn't be that difficult. It isn't, but takes a lot of rolling. The strips have been drying in the kitchen with the door shut so that I wouldn't go in and find Our Ginger sleeping on them, and now I must go and put them on to boil.
*A sash. Not a hat.
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