Twas the night before christmas - ok, the night before the night before christmas - anyway, from the stress of the feeling i would never get the presents, spending too much money and worrying whether Charlie (my special needs nephew) will have the concentration to dissect an owl turd or not (great idea: 'guaranteed to contain at least one skeleton' - its always the way that some of the motivation for buying any present is that one would have liked to recieve it oneself), I now have that much leisure that I'm writing my blog.

Last week seemed to consist of mainly drinking and eating out, and the weekend started with poker at Dan's which I managed to lose enough to get out of at about 2.30am. Once 1am has been reached, Im just not interested anymore. I've told him the only way I will play again is if we start in the afternoon. It's fine for him - he eats around midnight, has a bath between one and two and often works until four or five.

Saturday I went to dinner at Lucy and Richards to celebrate Chris's birthday. On arrival at Chris's where we were to be picked up, I commented that both he and Trish seemed a little preoccupied. The rest of the evening did not improve on the level of occupation - Chris barely spoke. I have no idea if anything's 'going on' - apart from Trish's mother being on the point of death and it being the anniversary of Chris's mother's death, but still not sure that that explains it. It may simply be that Chris had been out and pissed the night before, and we have reached an age where that sort of thing 'tells'.

Lucy delights me by taking the piss out of my family Christmas - she has an affinity with families who are mean. 'Interesting salads' (my sister's idea for the family get together on the day after boxing day), she kept repeating theatrically.

There was much talk about how useful it was to get to work early before the rest of the staff. I dont know what it is about me and getting up early, but I think that one of the reasons I will never soar is that I cannot get to work one second earlier than I need to. I am perfectly happy to work late, but of course working extra time in the evening is not quite as effective. Not getting eight hours sleep is rather more significant - without it I cannot concentrate, get to the end of a sentence, summon up any will power, I avoid personal contact and fall asleep around 4pm. Of course, getting to bed is crucial to this problem but I have as yet not worked out an efficient way of doing it.

I stayed the night at Chris's and for lunch I suggested the Trafalgar pub on the river at Greenwich. It was a beautiful afternoon and my duck was rather good. Conversation still rarely rose above the banal, and Trish was quite disconnected.

I set off at around four on my own to get back home and sleep before meeting Dan, Ann, John, Nick and Colette at the Garrison in Bermondsey street, a gastropub that I had noticed before and found inviting. Dreadful prevarication over the gnocchi by Colette, but then she is pregnant (and an artist). Some fucking about with the order for coffees and brandies at the end left the staff a little exasperated which was compounded by our being the last to leave due to the time it took us to work out how much we each owed. Dan got in a strop becuase we ended up with having to split about £40 which was unaccounted for, which showed 'we were not to be trusted' he said. I loathe those adding up scenes - they combine several forms of embarrassment for me: mental arithmetic, incurring the displeasure of waiting staff by taking too long and then not giving a tip, and doing something which makes me look poor. Coupled with that is the exasperation of the time that other people's mental arithmetic takes and how it always ends up with me apparently owing more than everyone else (except when John is there of course, as a triple whisky and an extra starter generally pushes his to the fore).

Since then has been mainly taken up with pain of finger. Acute paronychia. This morning I went to see a doctor. 'You must have a high pain threshold' he said. The only reason I had put up with the pain was because another doctor told me it would heal itself. Some chance. Guy stuck a syringe in me and held it up to show me the puss. He was one of those doctors who are probably pretty good at their jobs but just shit at empathy. He ran off for ages trying to find some iodine, and then came back with something which he taped to my finger with what looks like the stuff artists use to hold canvas onto easels. Badly, like he was a wino taping up newpaper round his leg for the night. I wanted to say to him, 'look mate I think I can help here ...' but he wouldnt have heard me anyway. Am stuffing myself with antibiotics. He said, 'do you eat enough fruit and vegetables?' Now I think I must be HIV positive - after all I did have that bad cold recently ...

Got lots of sympathy at work, and I felt so wonderfully magnanamous when I announced everyone could leave at 4pm (only manager for last two days). We had Christmas cake and wine at 3.30, and I felt nice and woozy.