I’m a little tired. Christmas has been uncharacteristically exhausting, as I may have mentioned. However, it was all worth it in the end. Christmas Day itself went off beautifully, with gifts and trees and turkey and boardgames and all things as they should be.

Hmm, speaking of which, my main present was a game of Monopoly from Flapjack. Oh, wow, big deal you may say. Aha, but you have not seen this Monopoly board. Is the first square “Old Kent Road”? No. It is not. Nor is it any of the other roads or places you may have seen on any of the many and various regional or licenced Monopoly boards. It reads here “Floor in Ealing”. Why, you may ask? Well, it is probably the low point in my accomodation journey. A homeless Moth crashing on the floor of a generous friend for almost two weeks when “between houses” on his first move to London. And so it goes on. The house where there were rats in the kitchen in Oxford. My first primary school. My halls of residence. The house I grew up in… You can’t imagine how amazing it was to see them all, familiar names on a familiar object but… I don’t think I’ve ever cried on receiving a present before. But I did this time. It’s just the most perfect thing in the world.

I bought Flppy several pressies, including her first carafe of the day, but none of them could really match up. I content myself that her birthday present from me was something pretty special. She also received a tree, a Japanese Maple which we needed to plant up. So that was what we did today. But first the roots of the old cherry needed to be, um, uprooted. No mean feat. But we did it! Oh, yes. I smote its body upon the paving.

Graaaargh!

Of course, I ache now. But sod it, the new tree is in. It’s the first thing we’ve planted in the garden, and it’s going to be beautiful.