I'm supposed to be devoting only one day a week to preparations for our January spectacle but this week it's been more like three, and they've mainly been fun because things are starting to take shape. Yesterday was a treat. I had to go ask the Principal Nun if my junior rats could rehearse in the school gym. I could hear the angel voices the minute I opened the school door and I thought, 'It's a recording. They're having a music appreciation class.'
But it was no such thing. The entire school was rehearsing a three-part setting of the Hallelujah chorus for their end of term Mass. These children are aged five up to ten. I'd never thought of children so young being able to sing to that standard. Bowled over. And to think, what a dreary blanket of 'Happy Holiday inclusiveness' is spreading across schools in Britain and America. When I rule the world I'll have them all singing 'Hallelujah.'

Tomorrow, by the way, is the feast of St Nicholas, an exemplary bishop who snuck around quietly doing good works. It's also our ninth wedding anniversary. I haven't looked it up but my guess is it's something like the Melamine Anniversary. I haven't yet picked out Mr F's gift.

Another of this week's tasks was to find pale pink socks suitable for those juvenile rats. Which I did. And in searching for pictures of rats' feet, so I could decide whether to doctor the socks to make them look more realistic, I discovered an interesting fact. Rats - real ones, that is, not the kind that can be trained to sing Handel's Messiah - are susceptible to a condition called Bumblefoot. Never mind that veterinarians call it Ulcerative Pododermatitis. Isn't 'Bumblefoot' quite the nicest word you've read today?

The little porcelain choir boy was made by Gillian Nunan.