I took a while to get into the mood. 

There were carols on the radio and suddenly Cardy burst into tears.

"What...?"

"Gimme a break! Can't one be a bit sentimental?"

"Of course, Cardy, that's what carols are meant for," said Hen. "I read somewhere they're our English folksongs."

"Oh yes, and we haven't got any folksongs because the Industrial Revolution wiped out our real heritage, while Christmas carols were the preserve of the middle class."

"Thank you for your contribution, Jess. So you can put a few words together before four in the afternoon," observed Hen. "At least we have Christmas to thank for that."

Good way of putting it, Hen. We don't actually know whether Christmas is the reason or the cause or the prompt. I wonder what believers would say. I guess they'd plump for cause. God causes things. But by now I'd left the table and was with my thoughts at the sink. Cardy had run away and Jess told Hen that either they should listen to the radio or talk, not both. He seems to be quite musical. Hen fetched some magazine article he'd been reading for months. It was so long since I'd seen the front cover I didn't know whether it was from one of the weekend magazines he called rubbish these days or from the Economist, which he bought to give him the illusion of having a grip on the world.

"Can I help?" my husband asked, and it was genuine, if dutiful, in that way Stelios had told me the English don't like.

"It's fine, Hen. I'm better alone. I can pace myself." I meant it. One morning a year spent peeling vegetables was no hardship, and it was almost fun. "It's years since I've peeled anything. They're used to eating potatoes and carrots with skins, and sprouts with all their leaves, by now. They may even get a shock."

"The table looks nice."

Cardy laid it. She had magically appeared, at 1.30, and I heard her stomach rumbling as she wordlessly adjusted the placemats and turned the knives the right way. "No flowers? God no flowers! Didn't somebody THINK?"

"We, I, snipped branches off the evergreens in the garden." Soon she was holding a bouquet of conifer, hebe and laurel.

"Cool."