The holiday begins!

The great advantage of my new green and lilac watch is that it is no luminous.

This is not because of some outdated fear I might have about the radio-active nature of the luminous paint (though as a child scraping the paint from a broken clock face I should have been) because these days it is not made of the same dangerous stuff of yore, but rather because I cannot see the time in the dark.

After four months (dear god!) of getting up early this term for the damnéd grind of school and knowing before hand that a mere glance at the glowing watch face will determine whether there is time to add another chapter to the involved semi-coherent semi-dream that is proving to be such a delicious alternative to rising from the warm, comfortable depths of bed – it is a delight to have no way of knowing what time it is and furthermore of not caring because it doesn't matter.

The end result is that I didn't get up until almost midday today! Such guilty pleasures! And now, after muesli and my second cup of tea it is almost lunch time. This is what a holiday is really all about. That and thinking of one's timetable and gloating over the classes that one is not taking!

I have finally worked out why my downloaded suite of programs have disappeared each day: the moving of the download into the “Applications” folder ensure that it has a life of more than 24 hours!

Similarly with the “Dashboard” (whose useful elements also disappeared into the thin electronic air) I have now worked out how to use it so that, at the touch of a button, I now have an array (ranging from snippets of the BBC News, via “Word of the Day” to Wikipedia) of useful tools flash up onto the screen and at the click of a touch sensitive multi-use mouse pad can be consigned to their place on the shelf at the bottom of the screen. I am learning the ways of my new and as yet untamed computer.

I had, after a more than satisfactory lunch in our local Basque restaurant, slumped down in the chair and was beginning to feel the real need to vegetate when the call to arms for the buying of Christmas presents was sounded and I had to gird the proverbials and sortie out again into the maelstrom which is the consumer strip which flanks the motorway.

We have now bought everything which we need to buy for the immediate future which takes us up to St Stephen's Day aka My Saint's Day at which time I would like it to be known that I am ready to receive small or large gifts to celebrate this auspicious moment in the year!

Tomorrow off to Terrassa to start the celebrations for Christmas.