The dog is out of sorts and I can't figure out why. Usually he's delighted to bark at people at the end of the driveway and race up the stairs to his beloved chair in the sitting room. Yesterday he ignored the serviceperson in the kitchen, and crept up the stairs only to flop down on the sitting room floor with a weary sigh.

The mother-in-law finally decided to head to Dublin to spend Christmas with my brother-in-law, leaving behind all her stress over getting the pub ready for Christmas (and allowing the husband and I to have the first Christmas ever on our own). The other night we had a dismal dinner out, her pinging tasks and queries at the husband, who kept tapping on the screen of his phone, even though no internet access was available in the area. To lighten the mood, I mentioned an odd article I had read online, about a woman who was caught breastfeeding a hairless cat on an airplane. The husband was amused, the mother-in-law ... decidedly not. "Where did you read that?" he asked. "The New York Post." Mother-in-law: "Those New Yorkers - they'll do anything!"

There's a depressed air about this Christmas. Usually it's the busiest time of the year for pubs, when they're heaving full with reunited families into the early morning. Due to the latest Covid restrictions, they're only open until 8 pm. We don't open until 5 pm, so the husband decided we'll open from 2-8 for Christmas week, and afterwards, we'll close until further notice. However around town at least two of the pubs have remained open well past 8; the other night other publicans were urging the husband to do the same. “Fuck the government - this is the country!” How many of the other pubs are doing the same in the hinterlands of this exhausted country?

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