I keep intending to blog more frequently. I know how disappointing it is to revisit a blog and find nothing new has been posted, but then, you know, writing's what I do for a living so when I get five minutes I'll usually choose to do something else. Such as pick wax drippings off the candlesticks. But here I am, on Saturday afternoon. I can't start the next thing on my list because Mr F is blocking my path, painting broom handles. As in, 'broom handles for the comedy Mop Dance '. Basically any creative activity going on in this household over the next four weeks will be pantomime-related. After January 11th we'll both get back to earning a living.

So I just spent two hours dyeing T shirts. I used the preserving pan inherited from my dear departed mother and as I stirred I fell into a reverie about all the stuff she used to make in that pan: jam, pickles, marmalade. Suddenly I smelled hot oranges. And I thought, 'Oh no. It's an olfactory haunting. She's mad at me for using her pan to cook rat costumes.' And then I remembered the cup of green tea with orange that I'd brewed and forgotten to drink. Duh!

The rat suits are a disappointment. I used Elephant Grey dye which seemed in the right colour range if not the right part of the animal kingdom, but now they're drying they look to me more like Royal Airforce blue. Definitely not a natural shade of elephant. I followed the directions so carefully too. How annoying is that?

Little things are annoying me at the moment. The word 'Xmas' is annoying me, and yet it's a reasonable enough abbreviation. My nice hard-working cleaner is annoying me by closing the lid on the piano after she's dusted the keys. She doesn't know that a closed piano is an abomination to me. And tomorrow at least two people will annoy me by allowing their cell phone to ring during Divine Liturgy and, worse yet, they'll look to see who's calling before they switch it off. So actually, maybe not such little things after all.

Blue rats, though. That's really annoying.