“Have you even opened your special present yet?” Chris asked yesterday morning.

(Now you will note that it isn’t Christmas yet, and my birthday was over a month ago, so the gift Chris brought with him on the plane from England must really be quite special… you would think. So why haven’t I opened it? Actually, it doesn’t appear to be much – whatever it is fits inside a white A5 envelope – and there is no fancy wrapping. Honestly, I don’t think anyone would be anxious to open such a gift.)

“I’ll look at it later,” I replied.

“Looking at it later doesn’t do ‘the job’ – if you’ll pardon the expression,” Chris guffawed.

“Hey, I could put that in my blog,” I laughed too.

“Well be careful to include all your ‘colons’ and ‘semi-colons’,” Chris enunciated the latter part of his sentence very pointedly.

At that moment our friend Roland came laughing into the kitchen.

“I have one of those presents too,” he said. “It arrived ages ago but I haven’t opened mine either,” he pointed to an official-looking, slightly faded and aged, A5 envelope on the sideboard.

“Well you should do,” admonished my husband, “and it could save your life! Besides, if I had to do it why shouldn’t you two too?”

“I will do it,” I assured, “but I need to brace myself and also work out how to do it!”

“It’s just six spatulas – two for each movement on three occasions – and if I can work it out so can you,” Chris sounded so brave.

“I think I need a couple more stools for the breakfast bar,” Roly said dryly.

“It’s like the second movement of ‘The Unfinished Symphony’,” added Chris.

Later on my brother Henry arrived with two new stools for the kitchen and, later still, the two ‘gifts’ in question still lay unopened on their respective sideboards. Sometime the bowel cancer tests must be seen to – the subject has been addressed – but I have a feeling that the envelopes will remain unopened until next year.