This is the unfurling flower of a cyclamen – I am starting to get a bit wiser about house plants and now try my best to buy ones that will be suitable for the spot that I want them for and vice versa. So, we have a very cold front lobby and the cyclamen loves the cold. It’s a mountain-side plant and needs to be cold to flourish.

I like its analogy to my day – I am sitting here in a gloomy den, feeling gloomy as I do every Christmas. I have basically run away from life. Downstairs, DM is in the Christmas Spirit and playing Burt Kaemfert’s Christmas album and every time I hear those ‘Swingin Safari’ style tones, my stomach curls. It’s not that the album isn’t good – it’s just that by hearing it I have to face up to the fact that it’s Christmas when I’d so much rather not.

All I want to do is hide away for a few days then come out into the ‘safety’ of New Year – a time when all seems possible to me. You know, it’s the whole ‘no matter how much I’ve f*cked up this year, I’m getting a new chance to do better in 2007’. I do so hope that I do make it through the next few days without falling into the quagmire but it’s going to take all of my reserves to do so.

I’m also all of a dither as I have a quandary that’s something that I need to deal with, but don’t really want to face up to – yet again, the coward in me strikes at my heart. I can’t really go into a lot of detail, but someone who I’ve always thought of in an entirely positive way has, whether knowingly or otherwise, done something bad to me. What do I do? I have to make sure I protect myself but equally I mean absolutely no harm to this person, nor do I want to offend or anger him.

DM has come up with a strategy but that means waiting until after Christmas and that means I have to sit on it until then. Hmmmmm.

So, I’m staying curled up then when we get to January, I’ll throw open my coat and all that red and pink will come gushing back out.

Last year, we were out on the moor, looking at decay.