as yet unmoved by the holiday spirit

It's been one of those useless Saturdays. I mean, I got a lot done, but not nearly as much as I'd hoped to do. For once, I got up fairly early, bathed, baked a loaf of bread, did a little bit of knitting, and ran some errands, but seriously, I do not know where the time went. Yes, there might possibly have been a nap in there, but it was a late-afternoon nap, when the useful part of the day was long gone, since it gets dark at four these days.

The shopping precinct, where I very unfortunately had to go to get Phil some Euros for his trip to Germany next week, was scary busy. Since we don't have Thanksgiving over here, for obvious reasons, I'm starting to think our equivalent of Black Friday is the first Saturday in December. The bellringers and charity baggers are all out, and while I'm perfectly happy to chuck some change in their buckets, please, people who are bagging for charity, don't help me. I will pay you not to help me, no please stop putting my stuff in that plastic bag, I've brought my own bags, and I like to pack them myself, no, god, don't put the bottle of wine on top of the tomatoes....OH FOR GOD'S SAKE, HERE'S A QUID. GO AWAY. And yes, I know I'm being a bitch, but since I have started carrying my own cloth bags, the enormous pile of useless plastic carrier bags in my pantry has slowly been beaten back to a reasonable and useful amount, and I like it that way. Good for the environment, good for my sanity, good for my unbruised tomatoes, good for the circulation in my fingers, since I no longer have to suffer the pain of plastic handles, stretched by the weight of the bag to thin, wiry strings capable of breaking the skin.

Once I got everything done, and got to sit down in the decent coffee shop near the taxi queue, though, things improved, because that place is the best for people-watching. I can sit there, knit, drink coffee, and judge the poor fashion choices and parenting of my fellow Wirrallians. The fact that I was wearing a pair of yoga pants and a long-sleeved tshirt in public and I have no kids in no way stops me from this unkind self-indulgence, because I can always reassure myself that A) my yoga pants and t-shirt are clean and well-fitting, with nary a hint of exposed belly flab and butt-crack, B) I might be a terrible mother otherwise, but I'm pretty sure if my kid were spitting on people, I would at least apologise profusely and take him home before beating him, and C) I have no kids to embarrass by wearing yoga pants in public.

But the real reason the coffee shop is such a joy at this time of year, other than the coffee and the sitting down, is that it is directly across from our very small, seasonal ice skating rink. I'm from Michigan. I know ice. These folks are from the generally mild and usually ice-free northwest coast of England. They don't even put enough ice in their Diet Cokes. Watching them try to ice skate is interesting, to say the least. The skaters were mostly kids, mostly mean, and mostly having a good time, trying to push each other into the rink walls. This view, while not pretty, at least provided the second-best reminder of the day as to why I am so very glad I'm not a kid anymore, because, trust me, I'd have been one of the kids getting shoved into the wall. The best reminder, of course, was the bottle of wine we had with dinner. I may not be as limber as I used to be, but at least I can drink decent wine.