Dearest Jangly-Haired, Mrs. Ancient McHasBeen

No, upside down Chrissie trees have not yet made it to The Village of the Damned. But green Christmas decorations haven't either so I'm not unduly worried about it. Luckily, I have my old green baubles and sprakly stars from Australia to bring out the dark green plastic pine needles on my tree.

Did I ever tell you about the woman who demanded I take down my tree and do things the Swiss way? She told me I should pack away my tree and not bring it out until Christmas eve, the Swiss way, in case any of the local children ask me why the Christkindli has been to my house early. You see, the Swiss don't decorate their own trees and wait 12 days until Santa Claus brings them bags full of loot. Instead, a certain Herr Luther decreed that it should be a magical imp version of Jesus who pops into their front rooms and decorates the tree for them, lighting the real candles on the (hopefully) flame-retardant real pine needles and piling the pressies underneath the firey tree of wonder. Meanwhile the kids are locked in the cellar sit in the kitchen waiting for him to turn up with their pressies. Anyway, I promptly told the woman where to get off and I flaunt my tree blatantly every year, enjoying the scandal it must surely cause. Pahh! I wouldn't have minded if she'd been a Swiss but she was an Aussie. There's none so annoying as the sympathisers!

I know I've been a terrible pen-friend lately. It's all because of the visitors, of course. Our darling Aussie friends who we visited in Belgium brought their two little angels, a very cute baby girl of under two and a gorgeous little clone of his father who is nearly four, to stay for a weekend visit. We had a wonderful time. I confess, I took them to see our tree but I did make it very clear that to gaze upon the tree, they had to empty their minds of everything except adoring thoughts of the two of us. The Glühwein helped with that, of course. But anyway, who knew little children could be so exhausting? After I waved my dear friends off on Monday afternoon I fell into a exhausted stupor on the lounge and didn't move for nigh on 24 hours. When I finally came out of my coma I decided to do some baking. Hence, yesterday I baked a banana bread and right after I shut the oven door, I realised I hadn't put any butter in it. After I wrote you a particularly humourless email telling you of the events, I decided I would bake another batch of shortbread. As I pulled the dough out of the mixer, I knew there was something not quite right about the particularly wet mixture but couldn't put my finger on it. It wasn't until I had cut out the biscuits and put both trays in the oven that I had a flashback of the events leading up to the baking process. I had added 200g too little flour to my mixture! So, my famed shortbreads are nothing but very crumbly, very buttery biccies. I have named them boy biccies and pretended that they are a very special recipe I made up for my beloved children. Lesson for the day: don't bake when your eyes are falling out of your head from tiredness or your culinary genius could come under question.

I am so very pleased that your attendance at my sleeping academy was not a complete waste of time. I'm quite sure that I will look for some industrial strength ear plug to see you through such noisy nights in future. I was once given a pair of ear plugs as matter of course at a Foo Fighters concert and wondered what kind of wimp goes to see Foo Fighters and then blocks out the majesty of Dave Grohl's guitar godliness? I should see if I still have those that I could mail you for Christmas. Knowing you as I do though, I am quite surprised that the jangles from your hair do not cause you to have apoplexy every time you move your head. You know, from fright.

In other news, I have run out of tea bags. As you may or may not know, I import my tea bags from Scotland, a bulk import once per year every new year. This year I have managed to run out tea bags a full ten days before we head to Scotland for our annual family pilgrimage. I have two choices: a) buy a box of terrible Swiss teabags and taint my morning cuppas with a way inferior tea product thereby ruining my first cuppa of the day entirely for ten days or b) go without tea until I make it to Scotland. I think I'm going to have to go with an inferior product but every sip will taste of acid, I am sure. Please, think of me in these trying times.

Yours in terrible tea times,

Call me Jenny for tea is my life.

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