Christmas Eve's pudding

You might find it hard to understand quite how grateful I was to make my first Eve's pudding for months, but it's one of my favourite comfort puddings and it's a great comfort to be able to make it for myself again...and eat it!

I give thanks for remembering it's no use crying over spilt anything...though you're allowed a whimper if it's particularly uncomfortable cleaning it up!

I give thanks for the neighbours being quiet enough for wireless headphones to transmit sounds to my ears at a comfortable volume...and for thus being able to thoroughly immerse myself in a film rather than the minutiae of their lives. I give thanks it was a good film and kept me guessing, even though it was based on a true story and I knew how some of it turned out.

I give thanks for the black velvet heads and shoulders of a pair of magpies outside my window. For spotting this footprint in the bottom of a mug before I washed it. I'm particularly grateful it's a footprint - if it were an icon's face I'd be up and down those stairs letting worshippers and acolytes in to view!

I give thanks I'm going out for a Christmas treat tonight. It's taken me most of the day to get ready - not because it's a hot date or a gala performance but because I hope that by preparing in slow motion with lots of rests in between I wont be too sore or too tired to enjoy it...and of course there's no harm in practising in case any hot dates or gala performances are in the offing! I give thanks for word game creation software and virtual bauble smashing to keep me sitting down...