Yes, it's 5pm, we've been out of the house seven hours, but we've bagged one.

It's blackish, it's got loads of cushions and it arrives in three to four weeks. Ya-hoo!

The Beloved has just bobbed past on his way for a fag outside and says 'it's not black it's night sky at 8.30' but he's had a glass of pinot grigiot and is all giddy because it's New Year's Eve, so ignore him.

NYE is our Christmas. No nagging, probing, bonkers parents, no turkey, no food containing chopped dried fruit, just us. We've bought two new games, two carrier bags full of M&S tapas and 5 new CDs in the Fopp sale.

So, I'm off to make a batch of fudge and then play, cranium, risk, cleudo, scrabble, pick-up-sticks the merry game of floundering and something about horse racing (it's new) till we collapse.

See you all the other side of midnight. May your NYE's be great and may 2008 be even greater.

All love xxxxx

We're off to the sales tomorrow. To buy a sofa. We are going to buy one if it kills us. The Beloved isn't aware of the death-pact. But I cannot live without a sofa any longer. It's sofa or die time.

The great sofa buying drama has been attempted on a couple of occasions but B is very particular about furniture. And he doesn't like anything with feet - in sofas, the foot-hating thing doesn't extend any further. People, cats, mice... all safe.

We have also clashed on colours. 'But it will show fluff/bits/marks/disintergrate in a week under the combined weight of two gnats' backsides' I have bleated one or more of these rational comments often than I care to recall.

So now I'll agree to just about anything as long as it's a sofa.

We bought this house two years ago and we still watch tele in the kitchen. The front room has one chair in it, two saws, a box of drill bits, a semi-completed meter cupboard and the tower of pisa recreated in newspapers, awaiting a trip to the recycling.

I have a fair idea it'll be six weeks before it's delivered but it will be coming. I will have made progress.

My front room will soon look like a shed with a sofa in it.

Yup, 8.30am. I knew it.

The old ipod gave up the ghost at about 5, flashing the words 'battery empty' at me before slipping into silence. Not so, the neighbours.

Handbag house and the intermittent shrieking of harpies clattered on through the wall.

I must have drifted off because there was a moment when i couldn't hear anything and that's just before you wake up, isn't it? Or just before they turned the music on again.

But now, let the games begin.

I've had a cup of tea, a couple of nurofen plus - now where's that vacuum cleaner?! Tally-ho.

Look I have been trying to get with the post-Christmas chill out. The post-family, post-interrogation, post-Sky TV blasted at me at sound levels that could rival Moterhead in surround sound, post-Virgin train hell. I've been gamely trying to put it all behind me.

But now my neighbours are having a party. This is the second one this year - not that I'm counting. And I do want to like them. They are a vast improvement on the tossers that lived there before. But I wish they would either invite us or warn us so I could be elsewhere.

Of course his Nibs is still up North at his mother's so I've got no one to whinge to. I'm Home Alone.

So all attempts at clean-living relaxation techniques have been abandoned. Until the herd of squealing pigs in stillettos started trampling up and down their kitchen (God, don't you just love bare floorboards?!), accompanied by some dubious and deeply mundane House soundtrack, I was happily painting my toe nails while watching League of Gentleman.

I'm now esconsed in the back bedroom, ipod on and I'm enjoying a bloody huge glass of red wine. Sod 'em. if you can't beat them.... I could always start singing along. I'm currently listening to Iggy Pop, 'Now I Wanna Be Your Dog'. Hmmm, maybe not. I know... vacuum clean at 9am really close to the skirting boards!! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha (that's my best evil domestic panto villainess laugh!) Revenge will be mine!

Having spat my dummy out and hurled it out of the playpen earlier on the subject of trains I've unearthed this, lanquishing in my inbox...

If only all train journeys could be this fun. Maybe I need a drink, but the Swiss one made me laugh, and the Irish one's pretty amusing too.

Oh no, it's raining outside... who's sucking all the fun out of this Christmas, eh? Go away!

We don't have Sky tele at home so watching it at my parents is always interesting/surreal/capable of making me question the future of mankind.

What is that programme where one bloke buys a car and then another bloke does it up? Possibly called Wheeler Dealer? It's strangely addictive. I watched four episodes back to back on Christmas morning, marvelling at how the bloke who buys cars looks like the walking car salesman cliche, right down to the wetlook hair and Burton Boy dress sense. And the bloke who does up the cars, who is rather attractive and far better spoken than any mechanic I've ever met, makes it all look so easy - as long as you have a garage complete with hyraulic jacking systems that can lift up a whole car. Does he never get dirty? I only have to open the bonnet of a car and my hands are black. His hands, face, clothes... all clean as a whistle.

And what is it with that thing they do with car keys? Can no one pass car keys to each other? Why do they have to do that ritual where bloke A releases the keys from a six inch drop into the palm of bloke B? Is it impossible to pass keys on television? Is it of some great cultural significance? Do they think it looks manly/good on tele? Cause it looks wierd.

Fascinating though overall. Kind of cleaning for boys.

'Here's a grubby old car I bought for £2k. Now I'm going to work like a dog getting it all shiny and sell it for £500 profit. Over and over and over and over again.'

Wow! What have I been missing? Someone get me Sky's number now. Or maybe not...

I bloody hate the train journey back home from our family Christmas.

Every year it's always the bloody same. Bloody useless.

First train to arrive late at Banbury station, heading to Manchester, was packed to the gills. I had a seat booked on the next one so I hung on. It was late, but only by 10 minutes, so no great catastrophe - so far.

I find my seat. No-one's sitting in it. It's all good. So far.

The train manager informs us the train is going to terminate at Stockport but we'll be bussed to Piccadilly. Ok, bit of a pain but not the end of the world. Won't take much longer.

Then we get to Birmingham. After 15 minutes of twiddling our thumbs at New Street the 'train manager' informs us our driver is late. It's 2.45pm. he tells us that if we want to get on the next Manchester train it's due in at 2.48pm on platform 7b. Having decided gathering sundry bags and rushing off to find a train that's leaving in three minutes is madness I sit tight. At 3.10pm our driver shows up and we're off.

Promises of going a bit faster to make up the time from our train manager prove empty. We amble through Stoke and as we approach Macclesfield we're informed the train will terminate there. But we can catch another train to Manchester Victoria. By this point I am crunching extra strong mints and glowering. Steam can be seen escaping from my ears, though that could be the mints.

So at Macc it's all off. I help an old woman with her suitcase, even though she's rammed it into my ankles twice trying to edge her way closer to the door. We all trundle up and down flights of stairs, all sit about in the cold (I'm still trying to quell hunger pangs with half a tube of extra strongs) and we all ram our way onto one of the slowest trains since Stevenson's rocket. We all get off at Manchester Victoria - an hour and a half late.

This isn't actually anywhere near my record worst train journey. It once took me ten hours to get from Leeds to Edinburgh, but then there had been a rail crash that day and someone had thrown themselves on the track near Birmingham.

But this was only Christmas. We have it every year. Why does it throw the trains into chaos every year? Why?!?!?!?

All the way home on the bus, there they sat, up to their necks in a tesco's bag, staring at me.

On the knee of the old woman they swayed together as we rattled up Wilmslow Road, moving almost as one as we turned corners. Whenever we stopped and I looked over, there they were. Staring. Always staring.

All right. I bloody hate dolls. Nasty frozen faces. Little hands. Little eyes. Little teeth. Yes, I might well have scared myself stupid with a story about a possessed Victorian doll when I was about 15 and no, I probably haven't quite got over it.

And here they are, back from my teenage too-much-imagination-for-my-own-good years - this time dressed up as Scrooge and Tiny Tim, complete with Victorian lamppost. They had china faces, clothes - Scrooge's coat was velveteen-stuff and Tiny Tim's looked like cord. Someone had clearly put a lot of thought into creating this monstrosity.

I know we live in a free market society but can't the culture minister intervene and ban the import of such tat? Things like this are sucking the last dregs of good taste out of our good old folk. No wonder pensioners will wear coats you could mistake for an electric water heater's lagging jacket. They've been bled dry of aesthetic appreciation by crap like this.

This Scrooge/Tiny Tim devil-doll has to be the most truly hideous thing I've spotted so far this Christmas. I've trawled the internet looking for a pic to illustrate but no Scrooge doll (and believe me, there are apparently a variety of these things out there) matched this one for its terrible, terrible vapid expression.

Can anyone raise me a Scrooge and Tiny Tim doll, complete with lamppost? Or do I win the 'Let's Call the Fashion Police' award of Christmas 2007?

I've spent the past couple of weeks coming to terms with a(nother) friend's death this winter. Even though I knew this one was coming it's still been a shock. But I'm fine. I've got a stinking cold, I'm just about recovered from a stomach bug, but I'm fine. Thank you for the sweet messages, friends. Friends you truly are.

I'm not going to start on about my past fortnight's lollop through the great mystery of life while wandering round the house ankle deep in tissues because, frankly, it's Christmas. Season of consumerist madness. Death has no business here. So away death, hello tinsel.

I've had my hair snipped into an elfine crop that's going to send my mother crackers, I've bought two new frocks for sundry parties (and only one of them is black!) and I finish work on Friday. Yes, I'll be raising a glass to absent friends on New Year's Eve but no one's going to thank me for running at life half-heartedly. Alive or dead.

Let's rock and roll, Christmas. Come on!

PS - Yes, this cold... I do have a slight fever!!

I've had some bad news today. It wasn't unexpected but I am feeling rather overwhelmed.

So just a line to say I'm just not feeling very communicative and I'm not expecting to make any entries for a bit. But I am alive and well.

I've never been a Doris Lessing fan. I know, I know, shocking... I've occasionally voiced this opinion and been greeted with incredulous stares. You would have thought I's just said I didn't like kittens or I thought Bambi's mother probably deserved to die.

I just don't get her. I don't get why cherries are such a big deal, I don't understand why anyone watches the X-factor.

And it seems Ms Lessing isn't wild about the internet. In her Nobel prize acceptance speech last night she lamented its influence on children and that they are abandoning reading for its 'inanities'.

Children I meet seem to read with veracious appetites and polish off more books in a week than I can read in a month. Every town seems to have a children's book award and look at the incredible popularity of Harry Potter.

I can see why she fears for children's eduction in Zimbabwe but are children in 'privileged' countries' really shunning books for the internet?

I learned something from Rick Stein the other night. Salad. means 'salt added'. Makes sense when you pull it apart. Sal - salt. Ad - added. But who would have thought that salad had its roots in salt, not green leaves?

I noticed another one the other day. 'Car' and 'sh'. Pick them up, smash them together and shake them about and what do you get? Crash.

Any other strange-but-true words out there?

Yes, it's black as black out there. Yes, it's pouring on a cold, winter night.

Yes, once upon a time... not so long ago... I lived here. And, yes, it was like this more often than not. And yes, I miss it. A lot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sytgIupZEEY

Boo hoo!

Ms 'Mind the Gap' is back in business but, ladies and gentleman, she's stepped into the twilight world of satnav.

She has left us noble creatures, moving together through the metropolis on public transport systems, to help poor travellers lost and alone - and probably driving cars - while furtively punching instructions into their mobile in a desperate attempt to find out where the hell they are.

Only a week(ish) ago I was lamenting the leaving of the woman whose dulcet tones had echoed through the over-priced rat's maze Londoners accept as a mode of public transport. Ms Clarke was sacked for her candid, and let's face it, very funny views about London Underground, aired on her website.

Now she's back - but the voice of satnav for mobile phones.

Glad to see Emma Clarke is reaping the benefits of her talents, though mildly confused as to what being a 'mother-of-two' has to do with the price of a train fare. It seems to be worth stamping on the ticket as far as the BBC is concerned.

Call me old fashioned/tabloid misfit/lost in the Seventies, but why have they missed out the colour of her hair? I had expected to read 'dusky brunette, 36-year-old mother-of-two'... or maybe 'luscious, pouting blonde temptress Ms Clarke, mother-of-two...'

We do seem to have stamped out tangent references to the colour of our skin in popular reporting, but does the colour of our hair, martial status or childbearing capability really have anything to do with the story? Or have I just come over all hormonal/radical feminist/two glasses of wine on a Friday night?

There once was a man in a hot air balloon. Realising he was lost he reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended further and shouted to the lady:
'Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am.'

The woman below replied: 'You're in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You're between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude.'

'You must be in IT,' said the balloonist.

'Actually I am,' replied the woman, 'How did you know?'

'Well,' answered the balloonist, 'everything you have told me is technically correct but I've no idea what to make of your information and the fact is I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help at all. If anything, you've delayed my trip.'

The woman below responded, 'You must be in Management.'

'I am,' replied the balloonist, 'but how did you know?'

'Well,' said the woman, 'you don't know where you are or where you're going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you've no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault...'

Yesterday I ventured out at lunchtime to renew my travel pass and yes, somehow, I ended up cruising the Chanel make-up counter of our local department store.

After eyeing up somme very pretty nail polishes, while quietly lamenting the passing of Chanel's Adventure-red lipstick (r.i.p: discontinued) I turned to make for the door. It was shedding it down.

I dashed for the next doorway. Stair rods of rain shot down from the sky. I dashed back into the department store, found a brollie, queued for five minutes and went back outside. Brilliant sunshine.

Why do I have four umbrellas hanging off the back of my office door and not one of them in my handbag when I need it?

This one's quite cheery. Smothered in pink roses and a mysterious purple flower (cunning ruse: stops men nicking your brollie).

I've just checked the BBC forecast. It's raining until Saturday. At least i'll get some use out of it, I suppose. Unless I leave it on the train...

It happened yesterday. There I was, queuing to pay for handcream in Superdrug, when I discovered my toes were tapping. Tapping to the tune of a Christmas song. Rocking Around the Christmas Tree, or something like that. But it was a Christmas song and I wasn't spitting 'bah humbug'.

And then, tonight, this came on the ipod as we sailed past Manchester Uni and I thought, 'may be I can get in the mood for Christmas'.

OK, so it's not your traditional classic. Some might say it's a bit moody, but I love this song. I couldn't find a Joni version, but sh'es not bad.

So, what are our alternative Christmas tunes? The one's that make us think of our Christmases, not someone else's idea of Christmas.

Let's make a mix tape. Yo, ho, ho!

As you may know if you've read enough of my blogs, my mother is very keen on a tonic she's been drinking for years. I freely admit I drink it too.

I've always put it down to one of her old wives' tales. She did actually spin me the line about bread crusts and curls, afterall. And she tried to make us take a spoonful of malt everyday as kids.

But I discover on my way home tonight, there may be some scientific fact behind Old Man's Tonic. The recipe goes like this:
1 tspn cider or white wine vinegr
2 tspn of honey, local if possible
Boiling water.

Mix vinegar and honey in a cup. Top up with boiling water. Sip.

Now, the Guardian's science correspondent reveals, honey is more effective at soothing sore throats than some chemical concoction found in children's cough medicine. It has stuff (technical term) in it that kills microbes and acts as an antioxidant.

Curiously someone wrote a letter last month to say they gargle with cider vinegar to keep off throat infections.

Mum says she got it from an old man who used to come into Lloyds Bank in Banbury where she worked nearly fifty years ago. Why his words should have had such an effect on her I don't know but the BBC website seems to have 101 uses for vinegar which suggests it's useful stuff for a good deal more than chips.

PS Mum says the honey should be local, if possible, because it's made from pollen from the same plants you are surrounded by so helps support your immune system. I'm saying nothing.

Bus drivers clearly haven't got the hang of social networking, that or they are so wound up by us they are just beyond caring.

A bus driver has been suspended following comments about the public on Facebook, on a site called What We Bus Drivers Hate About You Passengers! (Metro: Monday 3 December 2007)

Bit of a strong word, 'hate' but maybe they meant it in the 'I hate tapioca' kind of way. I don't spend my life dwelling on my deep loathing for tapioca, I just wouldn't put it in my mouth.

Anyhoo, I digress. Apparently they get particularly wound up by the stupid things we say, like 'do you go past my nan's house?'

People do say stupid things all the time. I'm keeping a list.

Two of my particular favourites from phone inquiries have been:

'The man you want to speak to is on the floor below me.' and 'You can't talk to him, he's tied up just now.'

Any contributions?

So there I am, nose stuck in the G2 section, back of the bus, listening to a nice bit of Mozart when I realise everyone's staring down the front end of the bus.

I turn round. Some grubby ned in a stripy jumper is shouting at this tall bloke who's going all squeaky and shouting back 'stop the bus, stop the bus.'

From the carry-on (which I could hear very well above the violin concerto) it appeared ned in stripy jumper had been smoking upstairs and tall bloke had reprimanded him only to be told where to go. A shoving match had started and it was now being played out downstairs.

'He assualted me, he assualted me, you're all witnesses, call the police. I want the police.' squeaked tall bloke. The ned, quite rightly, decided now was the time for him and his mate to get off the bus, leaving squeaky man to continue in his demands for the police to be called and we all wait for them.

Waiting for the police on a Monday teatime? We'd more chance of seeing Godot in the next half hour.

'We've got kids to collect,' said three women in chorus, with an assortment of toddlers on their laps. 'See the police when you get off, they'll be gone by the time the police get here anyway.'

'I've got f-kin' kids to collect too,' he said. Bad mistake number one.

'Don't you swear in front of our kids. You're no better than 'im.' said the three mums of Manchester.
'What are you saying? What are you f-kin' saying? That I f-kin' deserved to be assaulted? Eh?'

Bad mistake number two: don't try to face off three Manchester mothers by waving a bit of swearing at them. Particularly when your voice has gone all squeaky.

'Oh get off the bus.' they shouted at him. Which he did.

You know, I did feel sorry for him. Fighting's an emotional thing. Little boys cry when they fight and grown men aren't much better but it really is very stupid to take it out on the first person you see. Never mind three women with a deadline involving their kids.

It made me feel a bit queasy, really. You never know how these things are going to go and fortunately no one got hurt. Such an opposite of last Friday's cheery travels. But you can't be happy together all the time, I suppose, otherwise how would you recognise good times?

Quantum physics and the parallel universes theories are hot again now the lead singer from Eels has made a documentary for the BBC about his father's work.

I've followed the debate as best I can over the years, through string theory and then M theory, really because it just all sounds so fantastic. May be it was my childhood obsession with the Space Family Robinson. I dreamed of flying way with them to have adventures in space with Robbie the Robot and Will and Penny. The theory of parallel universes is a grown up sci-fi adventure for me... an adventure that sometimes gives me a headache.

Science fact and fiction are of course two very separate things but something very strange is definitely going on in my cutlery drawer. For a fact.

When the Beloved and I got together we each came with our own knives and forks, plates etc. We've been together for several years now and so you'd expect us to lose the odd bit here or there wouldn't you? Today, while drying up I opened the drawer and started putting the cutlery away in its tidy. It was then I noticed the fork compartment was full to bursting. I got everything out and counted them.
Knives - 7
Spoons - 7
Teaspoons - 6
Forks - 15

Where are they coming from? How come I have twice as many forks as anything else? The Beloved claims no knowledge. Are they breeding in there or is someone in a parallel universe is staring round the kitchen thinking 'Where the hell did those forks go?' I wonder if they look like me...

The scene: An open plan office on a Friday afternoon. Susan is sitting at a desk, looking at an object. Carol is stood beside her, leaning in. Jane walks towards them...

Jane: Can I see you for a minute... oh you've got Carol with you, shall I come back in five minutes?
Susan: Yes, do. I can't talk to you just now, I'm looking at Carol's i-phone.
Jane: You've got an i-phone? Wow. Can I see...?

Three women huddle round the desk, gazing down, mesmerised.

Carol: And if you touch this your diary comes up and you just touch it like this...

Choral gasp of awe and wonder from the three women.

Jane: Oh it's just like my i-pod, oh I just love the whole click wheel thing. Look Susan, you just stroke it.
Susan strokes the i-phone screen.
Susan: Oh that's very impressive.
Carol: And here are my pictures...

More choral gasping of 'oooohs' and 'ahhhs'.

Jane: But the picture quality is just amazing. How long have you had it?
Carol: Since yesterday. I put these on last night. Now watch when I do this.

Carol turns the i-phone from vertical to horizontal and the picture shifts from portrait to landscape.

More choral gasps of awe and wonder.

Jane: That is just incredible, how does it do that? Wow.
Carol: And you can email with it and use it as your i-pod of course...
Jane: Really?
Carol: Yes, look, this is the music bit...
Jane: But you an see the album sleeves as well. Susan, look at how they're angled, that's impressive... and so pretty.

The i-phone starts to play a 10cc track.

Jane: So you can hear it without earphones?
Carol: Yes, but it sounds better with... and here's the phone function. I've still got my old mobile, see you just press this and...

Carol's pocket starts ringing.

Jane: But the numbers are all nice and chunky, you can actually see what you're doing.
Susan: I want one.
Jane: So do I but they're like £250 aren't they?
Carol:My sister works for O2 so she got me a discount and my contract was up anyway.
Susan: I have to have one. I'm asking for one for Christmas.
Jane: I'd be scared of dropping it. I have what the blokes laughingly call a builder's phone as it is.
Susan: You can get a protective sleeve for it.
Jane: Oh shut up... Can it go to meetings for me...?
Susan: Err...no.
Jane: Just a thought.

The End

(The names of the women have been changed for their own protection. Now walking advertisements for Apple products their identites must remain hidden for fear of reprisals from companies marketing lesser products. That and the fact they are all embarrassed at what techie anoraks they have suddenly become.)