(no subject)

Office Christmas party day. I brought in a 12" Christmas tree that's meant to sparkle. Couldn't get a flicker out of it at the beginning of the shift, so had to wait for the office shop to open and buy a new set of batteries. Then it did finally work, but only with the faintest of twinkles - I said the bulbs must be weak but the girls reckoned it needed to be in the dark to look impressive. No-one suggested actually turning the lights out, drawing all the blinds and working in darkness, though. Demelza brought some fairy lights which were much more successful; with the help of a bit of Sellotape we draped them across her, my and Simon's PCs.

When Bev arrived, she lent me a Santa hat as promised. Mel's dyed her hair a very attractive dark shade of red. The girls were remarking on how nice it looked; I concurred "It's very attractive."

"You've never said that about me!" Bev protested, "I'll have my Christmas hat back."

There were enough raffle prizes to ensure nearly everyone won one. Liz won three - no 'put it back' rule at our office, though she did decline to collect a fourth. Just the one of my tickets came out; I was tempted by a tin of Celebrations and a four-pack of Gaymers ciders but settled on a bottle of Martini Asti.

Lin and Lynne had done us proud on their visit to Sainsbury's (rest assured we'd all chipped in in advance); they laid on a damn fine buffet, with plenty of chicken and peanuts, various cheeses and Pringles with a delicious onion and garlic dip. After we'd had our scoff, we played bingo. Some of us had fun calling out the traditional descriptions of the numbers when caller Liz didn't say them: when she called 57 I yelled "Heinz", so Della blew a raspberry, accompanied by a movement miming dropping one, reducing everyone to hysterics.

Then Lin suggested Hum The Tune. I was first up and chose Fairytale Of New York which Bev guessed after the intro verse.

Next I went for the Waitresses' Christmas Wrapping but no-one got it - several people guessed various traditional carols. When I revealed what it was Chris said "Now do one that we know." So I went for Stop The Cavalry, which Lynne got from the trumpet intro, and A Winter's Tale which Lynne got during the first verse.

That was about the extent of my iPod's Christmas content, so Demelza stepped forward. She wanted me to put my earphones in her iPod and carry on being the hummer, but the others insisted she take over humming duties. Despite her protestations that she was tone deaf, Demelza hummed most of the Christmas pop canon, and Della, Lynne and I guessed most of them between us.

And then it was 2 pm and time to go back to our desks...