Don't let me forget to take the casserole out of the oven before I go to bed. Please.

I started reading blogs and then Bloglines updated and suddenly the number of unread posts went from 200-and-something to 1200, which was a bit startling. Whole lots of blogs suddenly had 200 very old posts quoted. I got rid of all those, but I've still got 251 real ones to read, so please excuse me if I don't comment much for a few days.

I have started Christmas shopping, which I know is a bit early for me, but I'm feeling terribly well organised. I have also posted one card, which is really impressive. I wonder when the last posting date is. We usually just miss it.

I put a beef casserole in the oven some 3 hours ago. I wonder if I'll remember to take it out before I go to bed. I hope so. It has half a can of Guinness in it, which obliged me to drink the other half.

This room is chaotic. It was all right a couple of days ago, I wonder what's happened? Weeza and family arrived when I was clearing up last Saturday and I kept on having to do it around them as everything was piled in the middle of the room. They're coming over again tomorrow, so I hope I get going a bit earlier then than I did this morning. I meant to leave at 10.30 but it was nearly 10.50 by the time I was ready, having had people call at the door and on the phone (different people did each).

I cycled in to the school, but I've become woefully unfit or maybe just weak. The cold and damp make me ache badly which doesn't help and I wussed out of cycling up the little, but steeper than it looks, hill towards the post office. I went around the back way (longer but less steep slope) instead and was out of breath by the top. I didn't even try the school hill, but walked it. It was still very frosty at 11 o'clock.

However, the music lesson was entertaining. The pupils' work was being recorded this morning and it took ages. Fortunately, two groups had elected to record their arrangements directly on to the computer, but the three others had a load of small problems and the final one was finished barely a minute before the bell went. However, the one that took longest was because the four boys involved so badly wanted to get it just right. I said to them that I'd been really impressed with the level of communication and support they'd given each other (I phrased it less stiltedly than that, of course. What do you take me for?). It was a real collaborative effort - two of them are pretty musical but the others, who don't know a lot about playing, were included and one, who'd been a bit disengaged at the start of the lesson, was as involved as the others by the end, and praised the singer's voice which was encouraging of him, because it's hard to sing while a small group of people are watching you. Well, in my case, it's impossible, but then no one would be stupid enough, if they'd heard me sing once, to ask me again. I considered, at this point, inserting a short clip of me singing to Zerlina but I rejected the idea. Really, I'm sparing you.