Klee's Little Pine Tree

These are two of my favourite Christmas paintings: they're on the wall of my study all year round - Paul Klee's 'The Little Pine Tree' from 1922 and 'Snowballing at Stenico Castle' dated 1400. They were both Christmas cards a few years ago and for some reason I like the combination of the two.

The snow came down again last night. J. went out at midnight to take photos of the streets of Levenshulme and the sky looked green. We'd had an afternoon in town with Alicia - having lunch in one of my favourite Northern Quarter cafes, Teacup (formerly Cup - I think I preferred it when it was less smartened up...) Lots of slip-sliding about on the impacted ice.

Still not buying books...! But I'm going to be doing some reviewing again. The grumpy postman just brought two parcels to our door. More on this later. J. says I've found a way round my No More New Books resolution... hmmm. But I'm looking forward to these new proofs in the post.

So... we've got everything we need, I think. The fridge and cupboards are stocked up. There's a huge turkey in the fridge and a wallopping leg of lamb in the freezer (Last night's Radio4 adaptation of 'Lamb to the Slaughter' top notch, by the way. PLEASE next year - following M.R James and Dahl - could we have another series? Anyway, why isn't it more regular? What happened to Radio4's wonderful 'Fear on Four'? I must dig those episodes out. When did that stop..?)

It's Christmas Eve and we're all set, I think.

I hope I'll post again between now and then - if not - Happy Christmas, everyone. It's been a quick-quick-slow shakey-up kind of year round here. There's been disasters and fall-outs and dramas and unbelievable stuff. But there's been a lot of laughs and loads of work, and making up brand new stuff, and favourite characters returning and some modest triumphs too, I reckon. Like any Soap worth its salt. (I'm reviewing the year - I shouldn't be - that should be next week, shouldn't it?) I think it's Marc Almond singing 'Say hello, wave Goodbye' on Stuart's sublime Spotify list just now - that's put me in a reflective mood. Get the Carols back on!