Looking up at the stars - Z is a guttersnipe

If you don't have to go anywhere, this weather is really restful - obviously, if you do, it's very worrying and stressful, whether you have the journey from hell or whether you cancel.  I'm one of the fortunate ones.  There's been nothing that was any problem to cancel and I had enough food in.  Let's face it, we could eat for a month, although we'd end up with interesting unlabelled items that had been in the bottom of the freezer for a couple of years.

I was asked to choose carols for the service this morning, and did so carefully.  I used to do it regularly but am out of the way of it, so it takes a while.  Although, Christmas carols, there's a limit to how many are appropriate to go for at this stage of Advent.  I couldn't resist putting in my favourite, "It came upon the midnight clear" with its gloomy yet hopeful lyrics and the uplifting word "glorious" in the second line, and "See amid the winter's snow" because of the weather.

We got up thoroughly late this morning.  The Sage, unusually, has been sleeping in.  I've been awake long before him, but if I get up it disturbs him so, if I've nothing I have to do, I lie there reading and playing games.  Eventually of course, he wakes up, wraps an arm round me and then goes back to sleep - and so do I.  So it was quite late when we were dressed and downstairs.  This was fine.  It was Sunday, after all.

There's a certain degree of pride in those who get up early, I've always noticed.  Also in ones who go to bed late.  Few do both.  My father did.  He never stayed in bed once he woke up, but got up and did - well, I don't know, he was always up a long time before me.  But he never went to bed before midnight either.  I like early mornings in theory, but the evenings appeal too much.  I'm at my most cheerful and lively at night.  If I went to bed at 10, I'd miss that.  It's when I'm just getting chatty and interested in things.  But people who love to see the dawn think that this is a decadent idea, compared to their healthy lifestyles.  This may be true, it equally may not - but in any case, I have a feeling that the moral high ground may not be as much fun as the immoral flatlands.

I bought several bars of particularly nice chocolate the other day, meaning to share it among my children.  I'm having great difficulty in resolving to give it away.  I wish I'd bought double quantities.  I look at the descriptions and whimper with desire.  I'll resist, of course, I didn't buy them for me.  Dammit.