Christmas Crush

Saturday involved a small peace march and a visit not only to Caroline Coon's punk photography exhibition in Jermyn Street (hello Mykaell Riley, my friend of many years) but also Don Van Vliet's paintings in Upper Brook Street, which started off as a duty visit but actually, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed his paintings. I'd had a sneery thought that he was indeed just swishing paint about like a jackass' tail (his words, not mine), but he was very good with colour and proportion and the paintings are exquisite. If I was rich, I'd buy one!

Sunday was a different day entirely: we joined Reimagine London, an offshoot of Fossil Free London, for a guided walk through Vauxhall's green and revolutionary spaces, starting in Archbishop's Park and ending in the small cluster of houses where Mat Fox from The Happy End and Pat Holland, whose feminist TV programmes I used to write music for, used to live. It's now a thriving community with two community gardens, a community café and a community centre. It was a positive and enlightening peramble, at the end of which we sat and drank hot chocolate and coffee at an outside table and chatted about things with a generation of people who have an entirely different perspective from ours. This was a rare privilege, and very entertaining, especially the young Spanish woman who'd been brought up with snails as part of her diet and who feels pangs of hunger occasionally when she sees a garden snail in England.

Monday and Tuesday, I was doing more writing and rehearsing with Gina for Beefheart, The Musical. We now have five songs and they are really complex so will need a lot more rehearsal (we have three days for that in January). On the way back on Monday, I couldn't resist a little Christmas tree from the pub car park not far from where Gina lives. It's the smell, walking past it in two directions every day and inhaling its gorgeous tang. So I took it home on the tube in its lacy condom. The family decorations we used to put on the tree are up in the loft, but I found some limping old lights in the back of the kitchen cupboard, and enough of them are functioning to be able to twinkle in a very nice retro way.

Tonight, I have the last gig of the year at The Hope and Anchor, which is sold out. It has surprised me how busy the year has been with gigs, and of course that wonderful three months of illustration. Life never ceases to amaze me, in the good ways as well as the bad ways.

There will be time later this week to hoard a few Lindt chocolate Santas and add to the shaming little red and gold bell collection. There have been no tickets left for the Southwark Cathedral carols this year, but my Champagne friend has Covid, unfortunately, so we would probably have not been able to go together. The good news is that she will be better for Christmas.

Now to post the last couple of cards...