Wife (from the queue at the till): Darling, they haven’t got any cream.

Husband (sitting at table behind me, surrounded by shopping bags): Right. That’s it. We’re going.

One wonders what sequence of events had led to him finding a lack of cream the catalyst for abandoning all hope of coffee and fleeing home. Perhaps a surfeit of sales?

I have bought rather a strange collection of items today.

• A butternut squash – from one of the greengrocers down the road. I had to walk past three greengrocers that were either closed until after new year or did not have any squash. There can’t be many places in Britain left where there are 4 grocers within a mile of each other
• Four sweet potatoes – ditto. I have discovered that Rusk will eat anything if it is mixed with sweet potato. I was a bit too creative yesterday with the veg combinations and he refused both the concoctions, I think on account of using Granny Smith apples which were too sour. Hopefully this will make them edible again.
• A row counter – just in case I start any more knitting projects before the project I am currently counting is finished
• 24 stitch markers – in grotty plastic. I lost the will to make pretty ones when I couldn’t find the fixings I wanted to attach the beads to. I am ashamed to say that I had to resort to Hobbycraft for both of these, although I did try my local craft shop first. My local yarn shop is closed this week. How foolish of them. I was in the mood to spend lots of money. By the time they are open again I will have no time to shop.
• A plastic box – to keep knitting things in. I now discover that I need about 3 more boxes.
• A gingerbread latte
• A bath mat – Mr F was fighting a losing battle trying to keep Rusk in his little bath without knocking himself out on the head of it. Now he is in the big bath, the problem becomes stopping him from rolling over or flinging himself backwards.
• 4 pillows – Is it me or do pillows just disappear? Maybe these will last a little longer than the previous set.

I did not buy a knitting bag. The search continues.

Look at the lovely shiny things I was given for Christmas!

Knitpicks Harmony interchangeable needles

They haven’t photographed terribly well, but I am very excited about using them. I have decided that I must, must finish my essay and get the next two greek exams out of the way first. Or else have a rule only to use them when Rusk is awake, his nap times being prime college work time.

Esme is sitting on my shoulders chewing my hair. Bizarre animal. I think I had better dissuade her.

I went on my annual cheese quest to find some white stilton. No joy at T*sco, even when asking at the cheese counter. After several other cheese shops, I ended up at a very, very nice shop stocking many fine cheeses including Stinking Bishop. After sampling (and then buying) some smoked Caerphilly and some goat’s cheese called Rachel’s V, I asked about procuring some white stilton. Not having any in stock, and not being the first person to enquire, the proprietor rang up her supplier. It turns out that “artisan cheese makers don’t approve of white stilton” and consider it rather inferior cheese. Ah well, I shall look forward to telling Ma that. It is her influence that makes me go in search of it. There really is no better cheese to accompany mince pies. We’ve made do with Lancashire, but it isn’t quite right.

On Christmas morning Rusk and I were the only ones up and there was a fair bit that needed doing to food before Church. I therefore found myself sitting on the living room floor, peeling vegetables, surrounded by pans of water, toys and a small boy. Quite surreal.

Rusk’s favourite toy from Christmas was a rattle costing 50p. He chooses it above all other toys. He has figured out how to stay sitting up for a while by himself and is starting to get frustrated at not being mobile. People keep telling me that crawling won’t be far away.

On Boxing Day, the turkey was waiting to be disassembled, having been stashed in an absent neighbour’s fridge overnight. The only place that the cats don’t go is by the kitchen sink. For some reason they completely ignore that part of the kitchen. I now discover that Nemesis Cat, Es and Seph’s mortal enemy, has no such scruples. The turkey was surrounded by muddy paw prints. Thankfully it was well wrapped so Nemesis Cat made only a small incursion before being discovered red-pawed.

My lovely sister-in-law gave me some port in a wooden gift case. It took Mr F and I nearly half an hour to get into it. Is this some kind of plot to prevent alcoholics from getting an easy fix? We finally figured out that you had to slide a piece of wood to a particular place and then bend another piece of wood. Voila! The first piece sprang aside and the bottles were accessible.

I will post a picture tomorrow of my present from Ma and Pa. I know that it will make one particular person drool or covet. And on that note I think I will bid you all good night.

No, I’m not blogging on Christmas Day. Just thought this would be a nice way to test the publish on a specific day option.

The sentiment remains. Hope you have a joyful and peaceful Christmas – all 12 days of it.

Various commitments are taking my time away from blogging. The essay writing has now reached the turn-the-internet-off-and-write-400-words-an-hour stage. Mr F has had a week off work and has been looking after Rusk. Much more exciting spending time with them than with my laptop! Oh and Christmas appears to be upon us. Hurrah!

This evening I have been sitting and watching the snooker, having wimped out of a 60 mile round trip to my current placement church’s carol service. After my fortnight of enforced rest I am trying to be a little more realistic about what I can achieve.

One of our achievements in the last week has been to move Rusk into his own room. It was meant to happen at half term, but we thought we would wait until he was well. Seven weeks later… it has been quite an ordeal, even if nothing more than the usual routine stuff of childhood illness. I have tried to explain to him that the list of illnesses with which he is banned from nursery is not a tick-list.

Anyway, other than that I have been gradually sorting out food for Christmas. The fruit for the no-fat Christmas Pudding has now been steeping in Brandy for 2 days. I do wonder if no-fat pudding is a bit of a hollow gesture, but it is the traditional family recipe so that is what I am going with. Definitely helps making your own puddings and cakes when there is a nut allergy around.

I am looking forward to meeting the turkey on Christmas Eve. I managed to go with my principles, curb my astonishment at the price, and get a free range turkey from the local organic butcher. It had better be good… Nice to know that the meat you are eating has had a happy life.

Right on cue,* the little one is stirring ready for his late night bottle. I had better go and see him.

*yeah, that is a snooker pun, sorry

Always slightly worrying when you can sum up the weekend using phrases from a sketch. Was it Harry Enfield where the aliens came to earth and ran around calling out names of things they saw?

So anyway, we have a tree! A Christmas tree, with decorations on it. I have just watered it (having remembered to turn off the lights first) and it is looking really rather lovely.

A fair amount of driving this weekend. First over to my local yarn shop to pick up my Christmas present from Ma & Pa. Ma seems reluctant to do internet shopping, but has proved willing to phone up a shop and buy something, leaving it for us to collect. She even upgraded what I had asked for. Not that I have seen any of this, since Mr F has of course spirited it away until Christmas. Then today off to placement church, followed by a wonderful lunch and meeting with the vicar. You know how some churches make you feel welcome? Well, this church makes us feel really welcome and totally part of their congregation despite only going out there on Sundays and knowing that we are only there until June. Their generosity is a real blessing.

Which brings me to Baby Jesus. I’m really looking forward to Christmas this year, and enjoying advent too. I remember this time last year I felt quite uncomfortable when hearing the Christmas story. I had just started telling people I was pregnant and felt as if all eyes were on me whenever Mary or Elizabeth’s stories were mentioned. This year, with Rusk being six months old now, it is all rather different. I may write more later, but I have just noticed that it is more than time for his feed.

So I thought I would share it with you. To the other grad students out there, how long do you reckon a non-expert could fool you for? I think theology is fairly far along to the right of the spectrum. As with all xkcd cartoons, remember to hover over the picture for the extra bit. (Edit – except it doesn’t seem to be working. Ah well, still funny without it)

Progress has been made with the first MA essay. I now have a plan and I have printed out the instructions I wrote last Easter on how to write essays. Bizarre how I forget what strategies work. Item number 6 on the instructions is (in block capitals so I can’t ignore it) TURN OFF INTERNET. Thankfully, I am only at item 5 at the moment, and likely to stay there for the next few days so that is ok then. Apparently I used to be able to write essays at the rate of 400 words an hour once I knew what I was talking about. So, in theory, 13 hours of writing time should do it. That sounds doable.

Regular readers will be pleased to hear that I only have 5 essays left to do. The end of moaning is in sight.

I am enjoying patronising giving helpful advice to all the first years at college who have greek revision to do at the moment. They don’t believe me when I say first year greek is easy.

In other news, I joined the Mothers’ Union today. Mostly for research purposes, but it will hopefully be useful in real life too.

Ellen pointed out that I must have been having an extremely long shower since I haven’t posted since announcing my intention to shower last Wednesday.

So what have I been doing? Not sure actually. Thursday was a day of seminars, including preparing for them in the morning. Sadly nothing from the Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality this time. I found an amazing article from that particular Journal when I was preparing the seminar I was supposed to lead. I’ve no idea what I did on Friday and then the weekend was spent doing not very much. It was an unintentional blog-fast due to me never turning the computer on.

Rusk now has an eye infection so is banned from nursery until it stops oozing. Hmm there is a nice image for you. This means that I have had an unexpected couple of days with him – lovely, but I really should be writing an essay. Mr F is taking over tomorrow so I get at least some of the benefit of reading week. I had forgotten that I was on music group this morning in Chapel, so we had Rusk as an extra member. It was noted that he spent a lot of time waving his hands in the air. Perhaps he really is going to be charismatic.

So, in short, there has been no blogging because there has been very little to blog about.