Happy Christmas

It's Christmas, and I hope wherever you are, you're having a good time. Yesterday on the day itself there were eight of us around a big table at Roxana's just after one o'clock, starting a lazy six-hour lunch, prepared, expertly cooked and beautifuly served by Steve.

Ian, who's been down a few days already; Roxana herself, just back from two shifts at work (Midnight Mass then the Christmas morning service); Mum and Dad, picked up by me as the time to the first course ticked away; Duncan, picked up by me with time really running out; Geoff, too excited to resist already opening half his presents; Steve, territorial in the kitchen; and me, table-assembler-and-decorator-in-chief.

Lunch was interrupted by the Queen, then later by present opening. If you are reading this then my new very slim very sexy mobile phone is doing its job of allowing me to update my blog remotely.

I also got some books and other lovely things, and Steve is delighted with his new leather jacket.

The day passed in a fuggy haze of good food, good wine and good conversation, just the way Christmas Day ought to.

Johnny J-Cloth unmasked

It's been a long time, my little internet stalkers!

Tonight I'm in Solihull - and it isn't a State Secret this time! No, it's a Christmas party, and perhaps the drink has loosened the tongues. Picture the scene, if you will: I'm sitting on a table at the side of the room, swinging my legs to the beat of Erasure - earlier on it was a meeting room, but now it's the Christmas Party - and with the disco lights making psychedelic patterns on the floor, clashing wonderfully with the costumes (some of which really are in the spirit of the 1970s theme) two figures approach me. They will, for the purposes of this blog, remain nameless, so let's call them AF and BB. I've been watching AF and BB for some time, in a kind of alcoholic huddle on the far side of the room, beyond the parquet dance floor where the Flintstones, an (18?)70s cricket-white-clad weirdo, some super-heroes, and assorted time-travel rejects, have been strutting their stuff. They (that is to say the aforementioned AF and BB) head towards me in a slightly alarmingly direct way, and introduce themselves: "Hello," says AF, proffering his hand, "I'm Johnny." "And," says BB, giggling, "I'm J-Cloth." I take his hand, slightly unsure for a moment, and then the penny drops. These two (I never imagined 'he' was two people) are Johnny J-Cloth. So a mystery is solved. And as I stand outside in the freezing cold "'aving as fag" a little later, I slowly and painfully come to realise that I am probably the only one in the team not to have known this little secret. By the way, none of the people featured in the pictures are necessarily related to any part of the text above.

If you are unsure, as you may very well be, who Johnny J-Cloth is (as indeed I was myself until very recently), please search back through my blog. It all started on 6th November 2005, but then an entry on 28th November 2006, and a guestbook entry on 20th March 2006, and some e-mails to me directly, set up the - shall we say slightly bizarre? - character of JJC. But now I know!

And I realise now you have all missed my blog, so here it is back again.

There has been a whole cornucopia of reasons why it has been silent. It's about my mood, generally, stuff which has been going on elsewhere, and the fact that my Mum has been quite unwell recently, and this has been a huge source of worry to me. I will explain a little more about that later, but for now let me just say that she is OK, and I'm so, so grateful to my wonderful partner Steve and my two sisters who are totally on the case as far as making sure she is ok.

Anyway, what's been happening since the last update? Well, loads as it happens, some of which are listed below, and in absolutely no order of importance:

• the new series of QI started (the one we saw the last one being recorded) - yay!;
• we bought a gigantic new TV (Samsung 46 inch LCD) and have added Sky HD and a Sony PS3;
• we sold the old 'portable' (Sony 36 inch CRT) on E-bay, nearly breaking our backs delivering it to the buyer in Basingstoke;
• Steve hasn't been well, but you can read all about that on his blog;
• my new car arrived, and after exactly one week and 967 miles the clutch burned out at the entrance to the Dartford Tunnel toll booths, while I was on my way oop north, and there is a very long story about hire cars, roof bars and the AA, but I won't bore you now - suffice to say I had a crap hire car for two weeks, bu**ered my back, and I now don't trust the lovely Focus;
• there's another long story about exactly how much I hate my new car, but you, my lovely readers, will have to wait for the gory details of that too;
• Steve and I flew to Edinburgh to watch Michael and Christophe get married;
• I failed to secure tickets to an intimate Will Young gig in London - bother;
• we went to watch The History Boys (Alan Bennett's revived touring National Theatre production) in Cambridge;
• I put up curtain rails and moved kitchen units at Roxana's, helping her to make the next moves in de-Alanning her home;
• I went to the Varsity match at Twickenham with Ian, Chris and assorted others - huge fun, we (Cambridge) won 22-16, we lost one of our party on the bus later, and Ian, Steve and I had a great meal in London;
• Something Nasty happened last weekend while I was on my way to pick [someone nameless] up from Gatwick Airport - details to follow;
• [someone nameless] stayed with us over the weekend, and we took him down to the south coast on Monday - it was so great to catch up again after such a long time;
• my Mum has been into hospital twice, and whilst OK now, there's a lot of stuff which needs to be done involving my parents, and it's taking a large amount of my concentration at the moment, and a fair amount of my time;
• my nephew's wife has just produced a second baby, 9lb 5oz Luke, my fourth great-nibling.

More soon, and check this entry again for picture updates.