‘Shall we go away for Christmas?’ the mister asks as we are sat in bed, psyching each other out over whose turn it is to get up and make more tea.

For a moment I think he might have had a stroke.

1. Does he think it is Christmas now?
2. Dear god, is he actually planning ahead?

‘It was a bit much this year, wasn’t it?’ he gestures vaguely. What with the kids coming in waves. I was exhausted and I was thinking, you’re always saying you’d like to go away, so why don’t we go away for Christmas, let someone else do all the work.’

There is so much to unpick here I am stunned into silence. The silence continues for several minutes while I try to work out where to start.

‘Jesus,’ he says looking at me, ‘You’ve not had a stroke, have you? You’re never this bloody quiet.

I decide to ignore all the obvious low-hanging fruit and simply embrace the idea of ‘going away for Christmas.’

(We’ve not mentioned this to the kids so don’t be telling them.)

‘Where would you like to go?’ I ask, all casual like, thinking this will floor him and we can return to silently willing the other to bring up the chocolate biscuits when they make the tea.

‘I was thinking a nice hotel, something fancy.’

I look at the mister. We are many things, him and me, but we are not fancy.

I immediately begin to Google ‘fancy hotel Christmas’.

The first hit is a website of castles and stately homes that you can stay in for Christmas. In one place the guests are ‘curated’ to spend a compatible few days gathering in front of roaring log fires or reading from ‘our wide and expansive library.’

My first thought is that is the library wide and narrow or does ‘wide and expansive’ mean it just goes on for ages, like a horizon? But then I settle myself and refocus.

Curated guests.

Who the fuck is going to curate me and how the hell do they do that?

 OMFG is there a questionnaire?

That was totally my idea. (read back if you missed it, how I am devising a questionnaire, so dicks don’t get to read my book.)

 What sort of questions would you be asked if you were going to be ‘curated’? Surely the three and a half grand for the Christmas weekend would be ‘curation’ enough?

But really who do they have in mind for their Christmas weekend?

Is this going to be a gathering of lefty, woke types, who also really like Christmas and historical castles and don’t want the hassle of cooking dinner?

The Mister suspects I am not taking his suggestion seriously.

We look at more affordable castles and fancy hotels.

They look lovely, really they do.

There are Christmas trees in every room and little gifts for any children travelling with you – (I’d have thought no kids was a given but clearly by now you’ve guessed I am not the target audience.)

There are fancy dinners and Christmas buffets. There are wine lists and log fires a-plenty.

‘The thing is,’ I try, not wanting to squash this rare planning in advance. ‘See, the real issue might be,’ I look up at him still wondering if he is going to make a cup of tea. ‘The problem is, while all of this looks lovely and magical, are we really going to want to spend Christmas with the kind of people who think a hotel for Christmas is a good idea?’

Bear with me here.

‘Because this keeps going on about sharing a drink with your fellow guests, and look,’ I point to the screen, ‘this one has excursions. And I don’t know if I want to spend Christmas making small talk and fake smiling with people who think Christmas with a load of strangers in a fancy hotel is their kinda thing. We can barely talk to each other. We’d have to be polite. We’d have to get dressed. Are you really not thirsty?’ I raise my empty mug.

Broken, he goes off to make the tea while I carry on scrolling, regretting that I didn’t suggest he was hungry and fancied those chocolate biscuits.

He returns to find me beaming.

‘I’ve found the perfect solution.’ I declare. ‘No weirdness, no being polite, a shared interest,’ I insert a dramatic pause, waiting for him to be amazed.  ‘A Star Trek Cruise.’

He stands at the end of the bed, mugs in hand, thinking about it.

‘It’s not very Christmassy,’ is all he can say.

‘That’s the least of our worries,’ I reply scrolling through the pictures.