25th and 26th December 2006

Christmas day. One of my gifts from ‘Santa’ was Michael Palin’s diaries which I had mentioned to Mum as a good idea. Have read a reasonable chunk already, in fact spent most of the day devouring it, and it has put me in one of those must-do-better moods which visit me from time to time. Would like to think that I could write a lot more than I do, and write well also. I feel that it’s something I need to explore, especially comedy writing and things other than songs and poems which have preoccupied me for so long. I have the Discography project that is currently underway already of course, and few other ideas are coming to me as I sit here (mostly gleaned from my night at the Welly last night), so definitely some ideas to explore this week.

Was good to hear from most people last night, and a surprising wealth of text messages greeted my headache this morning. Decided not to reply to the people who replied to my ‘Merry Christmas’ text with a polite “who is this?“ riposte; if they didn’t take the care to keep my number then they can wonder on. Today has been good, although with Simon and Bethan both seeing their respective partners this afternoon, I feel at a loose end and slightly morose, though not in any terminal way. After 3 nights of pure hedonism I am looking forward to an early night tonight coupled with a quiet boxing day at Arrow Towers tomorrow, although by tomorrow evening I'm sure to craving more.

*****

Quiet boxing day back at home, until I got a text from Chris Allen asking me if I’d like to head into Camberley. At first I declined, after all there’s work tomorrow and I really should give my liver/wallet a chance to recover, but in the end I acquiesced to my rather weak lack of will power. It was a good decision eventually; good to meet up with Gavin, Sigley, John Mossom, who I hadn’t really spoken to over Christmas too much. Chris Sigley was telling all of his plans to ‘put something back into the world’ next year, which is obviously a great idea and a noble one, but one can’t help but be a little cynical of the fact that he made such a play of telling everyone about it. Maybe a more subtle approach to this kind of thing is more dignified. Saying that, he did buy two £40 rounds last night for everybody, so he must be doing well, and fair play to him.

So that’s it then, really- Christmas is over. It’s been a good one, an inordinately boozy one, and one where I seem to keep questioning the amount of hedonism in my life. Seems to me that the more I eat and drink, then the more I want/need to balance it out – not with exercise, which would most probably be a more sensible option – but with creative pursuits. My writing has increased and so has the amount of new ideas for the new year. It remains to be seen whether this is still the case when I move in with the wonderfully distracting Ally and Chris next spring.