Had a busy day yesterday. A very busy day. Starting, as usual, with Tai Chi at 8.15, but that after a week when half the class had covid. Not my half, unaccountably and thankfully, but as the wimpier and less resilient half recovered, normal proceedings had been suspended. But now we’re back, better, stronger and older than before.

Then to tennis. The daughter played, a rivalry going back at least 25 years. Not a normal rivalry, just that she hits the ball really, really hard, and I have learned to either field such assaults on my body in a way that keeps it going, or just duck for my life. Or sometimes for my testicles.

We rushed home, showered and prepared lunch. A competitive sandwich making competition, from which there are really no winners, in a calorific sense, but many victors in terms of pleasure. Just take a couple of massive slices of challah and put in between everything left over from Friday night. Chopped liver, roast chicken, stuffing, slice an avocado, add the condiments of your choice and you have the best thing since sliced bread. Ok, that doesn’t work in this context, I understand that…

Then we went to Spurs. And as I think every time I’m near that stadium: this is the best fucking place in the world. Ok, it is in Tottenham, which could do with a bit of face lift, in the way that Donald Trump could do with a bit of a new hair-do, or Kim Jong-un could do with losing a couple of pounds, but it is just sooooo magnificent at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium of Unknown Naming Rights, that it takes your breath away. When we can eventually refer to it as ‘The Hornsey Tandoori Stadium’ or ‘The Houthi’, possibly even ‘The Sportswashing Jihadi Stadium’, then we can handle it. Though for at least a generation it will always be ‘White Hart Lane’. As it should be.

The match was fab. What neutrals call ‘exciting’, what fans call ‘PANIC-STRICKEN!!!’, but we won. Nothing else matters.

And now, at 8.30 tonight, we’re off to India. This time… The South. We’ve done the north. Ok, possibly not ALL of it, but enough. Now it’s Kerala. Which is a totally different kind of curry altogether. And I’m sooooo excited.

Happy Christmas. Can Santa get onto a 747 in mid-flight? I bloody hope so.

A xxxx