Ahead and behind

Well, people of England, we have a time difference here, which puts la famille Grit eight hours ahead of you.

Rest assured then, that by 10am your English morning, I have hit the evening dry sherry and opened Squirrel's bag of cheesy wotsits. They serve as as a delightful hors d'oeuvre to my supper feast of noodles and tomato sauce.

By the time you are considering your afternoon cuppa I will be several glasses of red gone to bed, hopefully remembering to do my Mrs Santa duty. Of course I shall not forget. Midnight Christmas Eve is a traditional time to start turning the house upside down in the hunt for a pair of scissors.

The children have been tracking this time difference all day long, and now have set about tracking Santa on Google Earth, thanks to Norad and Dig, who made the plugin work.

I wonder in passing if British English might not be the first language of Norad's programmer, what with the Elf Toss. If it is, they need to acquire an urban dictionary, and quickly, before the letters on behalf of outraged family values begin to pour in.

Also incidentally, Dig has been in strangely jovial mood all day, encouraging the children with this Santa bothering business. He might have got me some divorce papers for Christmas, which would be fair, because I've got him sod all.

Thus I am signing off another Christmas Eve, this year without the annual happy party at the Hat's, but in fond recollection, and probably a quiet teary self-pitying sob, or two. I have found that wishes never come true.

But hope yours does, unless it is for my untimely end, or for your liver to be eaten by wolves or something equally odd.

Happy Christmas.