Happy holidays

What do you give the neighbours who, such is their capacity for etiquette, present you with a card printed "You're Great Neighbours" featuring a picture of a peaceful snowy alpine village (just like our hood, init)? They also sent flowers during weekend building work, and champagne on the birth of D-Bubz. They are impeccable. So how did we, their shambolic alter-egos, react? By giving them a cheapo card and a half-eaten box of chocolates, and oh how I wish I were joking, but on the bright side they didn't catch me shoving the dubious booty through their letterbox.

Apart from that, it was a lovely crimbo, though now traditionally a time for whisky and despair as throughout the land the whirring of cashpoint mini-statements reminds folk just how much cash they've wasted on being festive instead of saving it up for the season of drear, unless you're one of those peeps for whom life really kicks in with the January sales, in which case enjoy being trampled by the masses in competition for that ghastly DFS sofa on spesh...I wish I had your iron constitution.

Sorry. Its just that I saw the advert for www.cashforgold.co.uk, whose services I shouldn't really be advertising unless I want to endorse His Ronsealness (aka Dale Winton)'s cadaverous appearance urging all the rentachav, overdraft-mired types to start flogging their jewellery by mail to receive an alleged couple of hundred or so 24 hours later, like some blinged-up Ghost Of Christmas Just Past. The contrast between this grubby cashing in and the fabulous lives of those celebs I envied so much in the December issue of Marie Claire (if you must know, Kimberley from Girls Aloud featured heavily, and yes I KNOW about the accent but still suffer from the jealousy), couldn't be more poignant. It makes me angry in the same way seeing Anthea 'Sugar-flavoured snot' Turner advertising GMTV Bingo to desperate housewives - if your career is on the slide, can you really justify espousing such shady causes just to relight your bank account? But of course you can. Of course. Anything goes these days, and to be fair if I had any gold right about now, I'd definitely be thinking of flogging it, such is the power of dreadful advertising (and craggy-faced TV has-beens).

But sod all that, getting v excited re our incredible freebie holiday which was increased when lovely friends round the corner lent me their baby beach tent. So now Dylan is free to indulge his fave pursuit (grappling with a blanket, or in this case lightweight sarong) while being hopefully less likely to get sand in his eyes. Yeah! Although I am still gripped with night-time terror re dropping him off a boat, or accidentally sending him to sea on a lilo. Not that I 'do' lilos, but there was this one incident in Thailand where we acquired one blown along the beach which we fought over for several hours until karma made it blow away from us too, and I can report that it was excellent for lazy snorkelling, although there may not be so much of that in the Canaries, given that a) there is no coral reef, just lots of lovely sand (I think) and b) I will not have my mind on the job, worrying about my baby sitting innocently on the beach prey to every passing mossie and mistral (no, not the painter in the televised melodrama of yesteryear, but rather a sudden mini-tornado the likes of which I don't know the Spanish word for but had better find out).

In other holiday news, I am wondering how we will pack five islands into seven days, and whether that means we have to be ready to go at all times (probably a good idea considering our penchant to spread chaos across any hotel room in a matter of hours, but a bad one for the same reason); as well as anxiously waiting delivery of my two purchases from Bravissimo of their uplifting swimwear, and wondering whether I should have gone for the very tailored, slightly boring yet undeniably St Tropez-esque one piece number instead of the disco Barbie, less supportive, belly-baring numbers (a leopard doesn't change its print) - but only time, and their delivery service, will tell.

So eek, I am going on holiday in two weeks and that is still not enough motivation to force out a single sit-up. Not even J's daughter's helpful assertion that I still look a bit preggers can make me buy a Wii fit, that new shouty Davina workout DVD, or consider joining a gym. Plus am so bored of the park that my daily trip there (which I promised myself as way of getting back in shape) has turned into a weekly event. I am too fecking lazy to exercise unless it happens accidentally (sex, housework, lifting baby, stressing out). Even when I worked in a gym and had access to all free facilities, I didn't exercise. Am a lost cause!

Anyhoo, another exciting postal development was the arrival of D-Bubz' passport - collective aaaah! - he looks so sweet and serious in his pic and more than ready for some fun in the sun, as befits one born in the swish district of Westminster with a mother who listed her occupation on his birth certificate as 'writer', based entirely on this blog. He's a bohemian rhapsody, a west Londinium dandy, and now he's even got a top that says dude (although true to babyish form was more taken with the wrapping than the actual pressie, and quite right too).

I did quite well on the present front - for a start, I won't be needing to purchase handcream until at least 2012, and managed to control my gift envy (beware of assisting one's partner too well in the buying of presents for other females, else you'll find yourself in the same predicament, ie wanting to rip said gift from recipient's hands on basis of underwhelming response), but have now entered the realm of being just as happy with gifts for my son as self, although this may not be a lasting state. And something else now I am a parent - this is the first year that NYE has been a cause of zero anxiety, planning, or even headspace - I think we're just staying in with some booze and the breast pump, Jools Holland may even feature - and that in itself is very, very strange....but strangely calming too. No tickets, no guest lists, no drama....WTF?!