Possibly you didn't know that I have a brother called Luke. You know about Tom, of course, and also about Susie, but the time I posted that hideous photograph of the four of us on the back lawn of our old house in England, someone asked in the comments "who's that child in red?"
This morning I spent a good five minutes looking for the door to number six on my advent calendar, cursing Cadburys for their shoddy advent calendar-making and fuming about what exactly they had against the number six (was it something to do with 666, I pondered?) before realizing that ah! Of course! Silly me! I'd already opened door number six yesterday, and today was in fact December 7th.
I don't know if you've ever had a sandfly bite, but they're unbearable. They're vastly more unbearable, of course, when one is absolutely covered in them, from collarbone to ankle, so that one's body resembles a walking Braille map.
What sort of Christmas card do you send to a person in prison? No, seriously, it's not some kind of riddle; my mother and I actually need to know. She came into the family room where I was draped over an armchair watching Laguna Beach and said "here's something you can ask the Internet: what sort of Christmas card do you send to a person in prison? Because suddenly "Wishing you all the joys of the season" doesn't seem terribly appropriate."
There appears to be an advent calendar thief in my house. I have questioned every member of my family very sternly and all have denied opening doors number 16, 19, and 22---we haven't even had the 22nd yet!---and eating the small morsel of Cadburys chocolate inside. Thus, it remains a mystery. I have started suspecting everyone, casting my mind back to recall who might have entered the house, opened the refrigerator, and pilfered the one small joy in my life while I wasn't looking. No-one is safe. Was it the gardener?
Do you know the trick about peeing so no-one can hear you? You do know this, right? Because I found out this afternoon that my sister had hung on and hung on for HOURS this morning, all because she didn't want to go pee in a bathroom that was next to a room with boys in it. That audible tinkle-tinkle-tinkle, after all, is not the most alluring.
Last week I got an email from a man called David Burn. And it was such a nice email; it was entitled "Big Fan, Small Request" and it contained the proposal that I participate in one of these blog-game-things (as the kids all call them), in which I would reveal Five Things You Don't Know About Me.
Happy Christmas, Internet!
I hope you all have a wonderful day with the people you love, giving and receiving fantastic presents, drinking a lot of champagne, laughing your head off, and eating your weight in cheese and chocolate. Which is exactly how I spent today.
If you can be bothered to wait for this video to download, you'll be treated to my family singing a very raucous rendition of "The 12 Days of Christmas" last night, with my brother Luke on guitar and my dad on the mandolin. And my other brother Tom getting all the words wrong.
