The rooms were full of Christmas decorations, an excess of them. The children had been allowed to do whatever they liked. Angela recognised Elsa's paintings because Elsa had shown them to her before. There were lines and circles that could symbolise most things. Or just represent them. Not everything was symbolic. There was a smell of candle wax and hot punch. Parents were circulating and discussing the Christmas atmosphere that had arrived here about three weeks early. There were no children present this evening. No overtime for them, Angela thought. Elsa can relax at home with Erik. Rolling the ball over the floor until he's too stiff to stand up again. No. It's not as bad as that. But obviously, being a father at forty is not the same as being a father at twenty-five. She looked round. She was at a sort of middle age when it came to parenting, not too young and not too old. Waiting until you turned thirty before having a child was no sensation nowadays. Lots of women waited. But she wouldn't have wanted to wait any longer.
