Daily visits to the Supermarket where I meet other harried souls. We fill our bags and take them home, stuff them into some part of the fridge, hoping we remember where and why, and get on with the day’s prep. We all want smooth operations, like the song says, but we often end up with a whole lot more than we bargained for. A few of the mishaps this week- mince pies which refuse to leave the patty pans in one piece. Out of 36 I salvage 6 – a terrible attrition rate. I could sit and eat the contents from the tin but then its the scale’s turn to dip dangerously upward and it’s not even Xmas yet. Today I reach for the flour, but in so doing, I dislodge the Cinnamon bottle I had just filled which comes crashing to the floor closely followed by the Green Food Colouring bottle and suddenly my world is Classic green but not quite as I had imagined it. It could have been a very modern painting. Kitchen cupboards splashed, drawers streaked, blobs hiding on the black skirting boards and on the floor more blobs in amongst the more invisible cinnamon powder. I clean away muttering expletives under my breath – some of them in Greek. No one was around to hear. I stand back and survey the scene and am content the damage had been contained, till I lifted a T towel and found more blobs of green behind. How on earth did it get there – we are now talking way across the kitchen on the other side. More cleaning. My fingernails look as if I have been in the dirt all week.

I make Olive breads and pop them in the oven. The oven shelf comes apart and the tray is lolling to one side. I try to find the problem and correct it and in the process brand myself. It happens more or less annually. Badges of honest toil or the complete lunatic Xmas fridge. I think I know the answer.

Going to the Reading Radio party this afternoon and hoping someone will buy me a drink.