Noel or No Hell? The hand-delivered Christmas card..

Have you pruned yours? I've tried to prune back mine. It has shrunk, through life's natural wastage of divorce and death. But it's still pretty long and straggly. The Christmas card list. I don't have one. I just wade, kamikaze style, through a ragged coffee-stained address book. I do not tick off who's sent me and who's not. Not interested in numbers. Not in the slightest. Which means that every year I am in denial about how many cards I need and how many stamps. Because there are always the by-hands. When you've breathed a huge sigh of relief that you've got most of your cards into the postal system, this large pile of local cards sits on a side table, admonishing you for ignoring it. For at least a couple of days.
It will seem strange to some of my readers who don't live in the UK to hear that we run around to our neighbours to post cards through their boxes.
Why? To save the cost of a stamp: a second class one is currently 56 pence.
To prove that we still can?
It's a joke! If you are like me, you covertly scan the house for signs of movement inside. You do NOT want to be caught. You focus keenly on the letterbox, and reduce fumbling to an absolute minimum. You avoid making any potential eye-contact through the window.
Then you run like hell before anyone catches you.
Well, you don't run because that would look infantile, but you assume a nonchalant-but-detached air, as if you are calculating how many Brussel sprouts are required per person, and hasten your pace in a determined fashion.
I've just done 6 miles this afternoon. I kid you not. I'm totally knackered. But was only collared once by a very good friend, so that was acceptable.
I tell you what. Next year, all but the folks next door, will receive stamped cards from us. As my dear old dad would have said,
"Bugger the expense. We'll fry another goldfish."