Back to the Emergency Room with my mother. One more visit and she gets a chair with her name embossed on it. I planned to spend the waiting time checking the lighting script for our frighteningly imminent show but I didn't get round to it. I was still reviewing our Christmas food - in particular a knockout Hungarian dish called Lecso that I cooked on a whim for Christmas Eve, being a sucker for anything that requires two kinds of paprika, and Mr Colussi's most excellent Pan d'oro that smells of eggs and butter and lemons and yet is so light you wonder it doesn't float off the bread board, excuse me while I wipe the dribble off my keyboard - when my piggy mind was jolted back to the business in hand. My mother's name had been called. I believe she had been the beneficiary of some intelligent triage.

Man in White Coat did the stroke assessment. 'Non-acute' he said. 'Go home.'
I said, 'Hang on there. Don't you want to hear what's been going on?'
He leaned back in his chair, folded his arms. I guess he never took Body Language 101. Or maybe he did.
When I'd finished saying my piece he thought for a few seconds and when he'd thunk he said, 'I repeat. Non-acute. Take her home.'

OK. I get the message. My mother is suffering from Old Age. Robbed of the power of speech, her personality is quietly slipping away. Her lip is drooping. She doesn't know her date of birth any more. Stuff happens.
Walking home from the hospital we detoured for hot chocolate and passed a wonderful store that seems not to have changed its window display of fleecy bedsocks and bed jackets since about 1935. It's a store that could only survive in this city. Venice is Old Lady Central. No better place in the world to suffer from cold feet and high mileage on the clock.

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Typing away with glitter under my finger nails I am happy to report that we are fully en-treed. It's a beaut, brought by boat all the way from deepest Cannaregio and hauled up the stairs by a strapping delivery boy. Every year I find something in the decoration box I'd forgotten about. This year has been slightly different because I've managed to mislay a whole box of glass baubles. Maybe we had a bauble burglary. Try saying that after a couple of mulled wines. And this year's surprise item was...the cute little partridge I found in a store in Scottsville, Virginia in 2005. Yey! It doesn't take much to thrill this Christmas cornball.
Mr Ebenezer Bah Humbug Fitzpatrick is not yet touched by the festive spirit but he has other things on his mind. This week he became the proud father of a bouncing baby blog. Saturday morning over coffee he said rather wistfully, 'I wish I had a blog.'
By the time I got home from the carol service at 8 his first post was up. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Howard Fitzpatrick! See that man go! You'll find him at http://www.venice-art-tours.com
It wouldn't be Blog Day if I didn't find something to grouch about and today's subject is...the final eight bars of Silent Night. I have now been practicing this for three Christmases (I use the arrangement from Carols for Morons with Ten Thumbs) and still I bungle it. My teacher says it's Performance Anxiety.
And so rolls round another year when I'm not good enough for the Alice Tully Hall. Dang.

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Right at the top of my To Do list this week was my third attempt at getting my mother (a Full Whistles and Bells European Citizen) officially registered with the Italian health system. Every item of red tape I've ever encountered in Italy required three attempts, it's just one of those cosmic rules, so I suppose I did turn up at the registration office in a recklessly optimistic mood. It was my third time, ergo I would succeed. What a fool.
I lacked one vital document. I said, 'But the other office told me I didn't need that.'
'Incorrect information,' he said. 'Bureaucracy, eh?'
'Yes, bureaucracy indeed, you smug, pen-pushing, paper-clip counting, time-serving bastard' ...I thought to myself.
Didn't dare say it, of course. He stands between my mother and the subsidised healthcare she's been paying for these many years.
Meanwhile, she's not well. She's possibly had a mild stroke. She knows she's not 100 percent but she also knows exactly what she wants: to live quietly in her cosy apartment, to steer clear of hospitals and die in her own bed. I agree with her. It's certainly what I want when my time comes. But today I was torn off a strip by our family doctor for not getting her admitted to hospital and for allowing her to continue living alone.
I said, 'But she's managing. She dresses immaculately. There's no tidemark around her bathtub. She made a beef stew this week.'
Hell, if I were her I'd be shuffling around in my bedroom slippers and living off fried egg sandwiches eaten over the sink.
I said, 'Maybe I should take her to see an English neurologist, familiar language and all that?'
'Absolutely not,' he said. 'It's far too dangerous for her to fly.'
I do believe, if I live to a great age, and a fifty year old doctor who smells like an ashtray dictates to me what risks I may or may not take, I shall tell him to take a running jump. A very carefully considered running jump, of course. Safety nets and everything.

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Our travel bags are in the attic. No more trips. Mr F swears if anyone mentions travel he'll put in his earplugs and hide under the down comforter. He'd better leave room for me in there. Okay, so last week's trip was ENTIRELY my suggestion. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Etc. And what did it buy me? Well...
We rode around Soviet-era Krakow in one of those fibreglass Trabants with seats covered in Welcome to My Hell scarlet and black flame-effect fur. Confirmed what I already knew: communism sucks.
Then we visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial, saw those mountains of shoes, every bunion crease and heel scuff a story, and confirmed two more things I already knew: shoes are so personal and evil can be so damned ordinary.
The sun was shining. Magpies were lolloping around, being magpies, even at Auschwitz. Life continues.

I bought just one souvenir of Poland - a primitive, painted wood Adoration of the Magi. I've always loved those three kings. They followed a star, they turned up late, they brought dumb gifts. And such great names! I do know a Caspar but Melchior and Balthazar never seem to have caught on. Perhaps, if we ever have a son. Ah, no. I already had a son. Also a menopause.

And so home, to crisis management. We have a pantomime cast casualty. No great drama, I suppose. It's all of four weeks to opening night. Aaaaaaarrrrrgh.
If there's any unemployed actor who'd like a week in Venice in early January please step forward RIGHT NOW. Must be willing to sweat, unpaid, inside a limited-visibility goose costume. Accommodation and worms provided. Tumultuous applause and a place in Venetian history guaranteed.

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