It's here.

The Christmas cards arrived today. At the first glimpse of those ominous cardboard boxes, I turned into a crabby and irritable humbug. The poor DHL man. Though I'd have had a little more sympathy for him if he'd actually helped carry the boxes through to the stockroom, rather than dumping them by the back door and watching me and another spindly female member staff cart them up the stairs.

16 boxes of Christmas cards. 16! In August. Ye, we have to put them out right away. We were meant to have the sale cards out already, but I've been quietly ignoring them for the last couple of weeks in the hope that no one would notice. My area manager has been in twice and not said anything, so the plan seems to be working.

The giftware arrives on Wednesday. By a cunning and entirely unpremeditated (I kid ye not!) coincidence, I am going on holiday for a week, starting Wednesday.