It’s been very quiet on the blogging front since Christmas but now I’m back, dragged unwillingly from the delightful torpor of Christmas afternoons by the fire into the maelstrom of ‘sorting the house out’. This is because Mr Mason has taken the bit between his teeth and is going through the house like a tornado. This means particularly sorting out our bedroom which is, I admit, long overdue. Taking a break from my sorting of books, I check my email and am find a delightful missive which makes me smile and wonder. Yesterday was Mr Mason’s birthday and I ordered him a tweed jacket and some very smart trousers but they weren’t delivered in the time frame specified, even though I had paid extra for the service. Luckily, they arrived the day before his birthday but the email was an entertaining extra. This is what they said. “Please accept my apologies for the delay. There were a few issues regarding power cuts related to the poor which send our systems offline for an entire day.” Hmm, those damned poor people again, interfering in my postal deliveries!

So, Mr Mason’s day begins with a skype call with Miss Mason in Bangkok and continues with an exciting viewing of the latest Hobbit offering in 3D. We did not expect the 3D addition so it was quite a thrilling addition. Yes, we are easily pleased. The film is the usual serving of elves, hobbits and dwarves battling with orcs, silly jokes and lots of things being killed. The best line in the film is “Dad, why are there dwarves climbing out of our toilet?” Sorry if that’s spoiled the whole trilogy for you. Blame it on the poor. Mr Masons’s day gets better and better as Master Mason and Ms Atherton appear as if by magic and we whisk him away to a local sushi bar where we are served with lavish portions of fabulous food and then given a free dessert followed by tea. It’s a nice little restaurant that hasn’t been open long so we have tried to patronise it as often as we can and the owner tells me friends we rook there recently have since returned to eat which is great.

Christmas was lovely. We all wear reindeer antlers to show just how jolly and festive we are. Some of us wear them with pride, others under suffrance but we have a really good few days and Dog is ecstatic to increase the number of his pack while Master Mason stays with us. The present to Miss Mason and her fiance is a bit of a disaster. Posting it on 10th December we feel we have plenty of time, particularly as Christmas is not an event celebrated much in Thailand so postal services will not buckle under the weight of a million cards and parcels. The parcel still does not arrive so eventually Mr Mason, swearing loudly at the automated voice, gets though to a real person at Royal Mail. They are able to track our parcel to Belfast where it has not been able to fly as it contains ‘something’. The parcel is not going to Miss Mason nor, it seems, is it being returned to me. It is just languishing, having a rotten time of it. I now have to go to the Post Office to claim it back by listing everything it contains and how much it cost. Presumably they then convene a ‘contraband party’, open all the presents in a festive flurry before hopefully returning the parcel to us so we can repeat the whole expensive performance over again. Meanwhile, Miss Mason is left with one slightly dodgy party whistle and no gifts. What a let down. At least the poor are not blamed for this fiasco although I have yet to enter into written dialogue with Royal Mail so I wouldn’t count it out just yet.

As for myself, I have found my energy to have deserted me in a big way for the last few days. Sleep has become an annoyingly rare commodity, despite waxing lyrical about the benefits of sleeping under a wool duvet and on top of wool pillows. The wool duvet is, I have to say, supremely comfortable and I would highly recommend it. It still doesn’t lull me to sleep and by day I don’t like to sleep for fear of missing something or waking up grumpy and still not sleeping through the night. All this culminates in an extreme exhaustion which requires me to do nothing except sit and wait for it to pass. Yes, we have been here before and I know there is nothing to do about it but it still drives me nuts. If only I had the energy I would go and find some poor people I could blame my situation on.