more roaring greasepaint, more smelly crowd.

That’s the Brownie play over for another year. 2005’s Dr Who and the Missing Christmas lacked a little of the sparkle of last year’s Panto Idol. Perhaps once you’ve had a six-legged pantomime cow anything else seems, I don’t know, muted, no matter how many [nine] Bahumbug aliens sneak onstage to nick Christmas. No matter the tardis sound effect; no matter the revelation that the man in red [who spat out her gum this week] and his [many] helpers are From Another Planet*; no matter the balloon whisk, sink plunger allusion to Dr Who’s uber baddies; no matter the sherry-soaked transformation of Dr to Dr.

It must be that six-legged pantomime cow.

Which is making an appearance this year at the Brownie pack up the road’s Christmas bash. Word’s getting round that there are some plays. For Brownies. With six-legged cows. Brown Owl Claire wants to send my plays off to the Guiding Magazine. Soon all Brownies in the UK will Find the Cow, have their chance to Be the Cow. It’s only fair.

Thing is, obliging though I am, I’m not certain how successful these plays will be in the coming years. The knack of a good Brownie play being, freak cows aside, to hook into the zeitgeist. Brownies love a good bit of zeitgeist. Last year I pipped the Shrek 2 DVD release to the post with Panto Idol, this year I’ve anticipated the Dr Who Christmas special.

That’s my talent, my gift, my curse. Oh woe. Oh sigh. Ah me. I get a tickle at the back of my nostrils that tells me the way to go, to show the shift before the shift shifts. If only I could make it pay. Reckon I’ve promised not to pre-empt the zeitgeist for personal gain.

It’s a right arse.

Of course, it can’t all be zeigeist; you’ve got to tip your hat to the classics. This year the narrators used that metre known technically as te tum tum te tum tum te tum tum te tum. The one from Twas the night and The Grinch.

The Bahumbug’s planet
Was dark, sad and grey
And Christmas was always
A planet away.

Away, high in the distance
Sparkled a star
With bright season’s greetings
But oh, so, so, far!

How they wanted to reach it
And share in the fun.
They started to study
How it could be done.

They read “The Grinch”
And saw how he got plenty
But their copy was missing
Pages thirteen to twenty.

The Doctor wanted to help them
And had an idea
Of how to give the Bahumbugs
Some real Christmas cheer.

For his idea to work
Doctor Who had to plan it
With the help of the
Bahumbug’s neighbouring … planet.

The star that sparkled
A bright Christmas light.
*Can you guess who they are?
You might just be right.

Thank you Thank you. I know. It’s my gift. My curse.

The Slade stayed.

Narrator 2 beholds Queen Bahumbug

and lo

zig mad hair day
Originally uploaded by glatisant.

guess who's up for joseph in the school nativity this year.

eau de thomas, mary, taz, ned, morrin, toby, spray and cee jay

Wedding anniversary. Seven years. We’ve been together eleven years since the 5th. So there are cards and gentle stuff. It’s a change time, so gentle is good: change of job for Gruff; change of stress pattern as mebbe cancer scare turns out to be water on the nad; change of jumper for me because I smell of pony.

That is, a change of jumper if I was a nice, honouring the anniversary by showering and smelling purty sort of wife. But I’m a cosy jumper, like the smell of pony, shower when I’m good and ready and start to itch sort of wife. Which is the best there is.

I’ve been volunteering at a local Riding For The Disabled school for a few weeks now. Molster and Ziggy have been going for a couple of months, paid lessons are provided for standard issue kids at the weekend to help cover costs, and we give a voluntary contribution for Zig’s. Molster likes the gentle, friendly, black Cee Jay, Zig – a little bugger for a little bugger – loves with admiration the obstreperous white ex show pony, Toby. He arrived as a loan, originally, whiter than white. After two weeks of rolling in almost vertical mud in almost vertical fields, they knew they could never get that colour back, so kept him.

Started the morning by grooming the biggest … when does a pony become a horse? Thomas must cross the line. Have heard he can nip a bit to search for treats, so treats have been banned. Also – ha - he likes to lean on you when you clean his hooves. However, he was a perfect gent: looked attentive as I rambled on with brush, currycomb and conversational monologue; lifted his soup plate hooves one at a time as requested, the better for me to pick out half a field of mud, leaves and horse shit; obliged me – as most do – with a long, companionable, hay top noted fart as I brushed the dust from his broad rump.

Then onto Mary, a piebald grandmother who can get depressed. The next largest. I whispered into her ear that she was Gruff’s favourite, but shhh, don’t tell.

And on along the ponies, brush and hoof pick, and dust clouds and filthy fetlocks, and oh those farts.

I rode Ned: slightly stiff of joints, honourable, not quick to trust, looks like Hitler. To the moustache. The first time up on a pony in over twenty years, and I’m proud to say I came off the right way. But, oh, the rising trot is a different animal these days. I don’t know what’s happened to my thigh muscles. Didn’t I used to have thigh muscles? Although not tenor lady material, I’m glad to be a lady with no water on the nad.