December's Best Diary Fail

Remember when I said that today was going to be manic?  Well, it was - but very much not in a glamorous way at all.  Clearly I forgot to look at my diary when I wrote up yesterday's Frock Fridays!

The past week has been totally hectic and so I let myself sleep in this morning, which was glorious, but once I left the house all was go-go-go until I got back a few hours ago: Jon and I did some Christmas shopping for his trickier relatives and then I headed into work to host a special event for our donors.  On my way back home, I got lost in John Lewis while trying to find holiday decorations for my flat; however, sparkly things were successfully discovered and so the early part of the evening was spent stringing ornaments on thread and hammering hooks into walls and simmering minestrone and making dough for more gingersnaps.  I had been asked to babysit tonight, and so I'm now curled up on the couch in my landlords' house - and dashing back into my kitchen every 12 minutes to rotate trays of cookies in and out of the oven - with a cup of tea on the floor, the Christmas radio station playing on last.fm, and the winter/holiday issues of four online shelter magazines ( un / deux / trois / quatre ) open on my laptop.

Heaven.

There really is something about hunkering down in the winter dark, isn't there?  Something primal that makes us want to nest.  The sun is setting soon after 4pm, the temperatures are firmly in the single digits, and the bare branches of the trees are clattering together; Mother Nature isn't waiting until the solstice to start the season.  All we want, truly, is to be comfortably inside, saying things like, "My, isn't it windy out there!"

I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend, and that you're settled and warm, too.  See you at my concert tomorrow!  (And don't forget to enter the GIVEAWAY...)