We're in the dregs of the year now.
Christmas is over, and we've all turned into walking zombies as we wait for the year to run out.
Me too, by the way. I managed to get out of London for a few days, and coming back has felt like being plunged into cloudy ditch water.
At least I know where I'm going. A return visit to Harrow, to get into the main bit of the Harrow Arts Centre after visiting the studio space in June. This time I don't make the mistake of walking through the gardens, instead nipping past the Morrisons and aiming myself to where I remember the front door to be.
I must be going in the right direction because there's a huge banner for the show I'm seeing strung up next to the road.
Aladdin.
It looks very... ummm.
I mean, it's not just me, is it? Like, I know I'm a lefty liberal and all that. But this isn't just me being all PC is it?
And it's not like we're in, I don't know, rural Oxfordshire or something.
We're in Harrow.
Last time I was here I was literally the only white person in the audience.
And now they've gone and cast a white Aladdin.
That doesn't seem right to me.
I hurry over the crossing and make my way past the huge sundial.
With the light dimming fast, the tall stone walls of the main building look very dramatic. The sort of building where you can expect to find a first wife tearing up the attic.
I step through the arched doorway and make my way into the foyer, ignoring the sign for the box office. I know it's a tricksy sign which only points towards a locked door. I keep on going until I reach the corridor. An usher is talking to a family. He's wearing a Santa hat.
Christmas still be going strong in Harrow.
Round the corner, I find the actual box office. A room which looks for all the world like I should be making a dentist appointment at the counter.
"The surname's Smiles?" I say to the lady behind the counter, trying hard not to worry about the last time I flossed.
She dives for the ticket box and starts flicking through the letter tabs.
"Sorry," she says when her search reaches the embarrassing 2.3 second mark.
"There are a lot of Ss... Ah! There you are!" She stares at the ticket. "Do you have the reference number? It doesn't have your postcode."
That's strange. I booked online. I would have thought that the postcode was attached to my order, but never mind. I pull out my phone and find the confirmation email. It doesn't take long. I only booked this morning.
"Is it the order number?" I ask, spotting the string of numbers and letters up near the top.
She says that it is, so I read it out to her. All of it.
"Yup," she says, as I finish up. She hands me the ticket.
Back in the corridor, a father waits patiently as his little girl examines the rack of flyers for this afternoon's performance of Aladdin.
"That's not Jasmine!" she announces suddenly, flapping the flyer in front of her father's face. "Jasmine has black hair!"
Now, while I would usually roll my eyes at this Disneyfication of faerie-tales, she's Princess Badroulbadour in the 'original' story, she's right. Jasmine or Badroulbadour should probably have black hair.
The little girl dips her own black-haired head and stares at the blonde princess, the one panto heroine who should probably look, well, just like the little girl holding the flyer.
I keep on going.
There's a gallery just off the foyer that I'd like to have a look at.
It's filled with portraits.
And the vestiges of pantos past. Broken flashy toys nestle up to discarded flyers on the ledges. A memory of the earlier matinee.
I go outside.
Families make their way over in dribs and drabs. The children bouncing around in excitement.
Behind me, I hear a strange tearing sound. Like fabric ripping.
A family stops, hovering near the entrance as they wait for the way to clear.
Someone is bending over, applying tape to the ground. Twenty minutes before a performance starts. Primetime for people wanting to enter the building.
Building Services people never rest. Even when they probably should.
Floor thoroughly stuck, and way clear, I go back in. There's no use putting it off any more. I've got to see this damn panto.
I follow the signs for seats numbered 13 to 23.
Down a corridor, and towards the door.
"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls," comes a voice over the sound system. "Welcome to the Harrow Arts Centre. Please take your seats, because the performance will start in just under fifteen minutes. Enjoy the show!"
Yeah, yeah. I'm going. I'm going.
I'm not going. I'm standing in the corridor. Dithering.
It may be my last panto of the year, but I'm not feeling the joy. Even with Slade banging out of the speakers.
But it's no use being a grim-faced arse with kids around. You just go to grit your teeth, and pretend to enjoy the damn panto.
The ticket checker looks happy. It's her last panto too. The last performance of the run. And she's grinning.
"Row S!" she says, looking at my ticket. "You're just there, darling." She points up the side aisle and I go in.
And this is it. Elliot Hall.
Quite the place.
High windows are blocked off by thick curtains. Wood panelling surrounds us and carved arches are almost hidden behind the heavy lighting rig.
Over the other side is a dark portrait. I can't make it out. But it seems to be of a rather stern looking man.
I climb up the stairs towards my row. Near the back. Because this is panto after all.
I count down the chairs until I reach mine. Or at least, the one that should be mine. As there appears to be someone sitting in it right now.
"Hi?" I say, to the person who is in what I am fairly confident is meant to be my seat. "Are you S14?"
He pulls out a pile of tickets and paws through them. "No. I'm S11 to S13," he says, before turning around to see the number written on the back of his seat.
"I'm in the wrong seat," he announces cheerfully.
Yes he is.
He gets up and plonks himself down in the free seat next to him. "No I'm not!"
His wife looks over and laughs. "Are you in the wrong seat?” she giggles.
"Not anymore!"
Glad we got that sorted. It would have been awful if I couldn't get a seat in the final show of this run and had to go home...
A small child is coming through, clutching a booster seat against his chest which is almost as big as him.
I struggle to my feet to let him past.
"You have to say excuse me!" says his seat-stealing dad.
"Ex'coos me," whispers the small child, scooting past to return his booster to the usher by the door.
He may be small, but he's too much of a big boy for such props.
It's then I realise I'm missing my own prop.
The usher on the door may have a stack of booster seats to hand out, but she seems to be lacking on the programme-front. In fact, I don't remember seeing programmes for sale anywhere. And looking around this audience, no one else has either.
That's the second panto of the run that hasn't offered me my quota of papery goodness. And the second of the larger outer-London affairs that I've been to.
That must surely not be a coincidence.
On either side of the auditorium, the doors close. I check my phone. It's 4.27pm.
They don't believe in latecomers at the Harrow Arts Centre.
"What time does it startttt?!" cries the small boy now returned from his booster seat adventure.
Dad checks the time. "4.30," he says. "Now."
But we have a few more minutes to wait before the house lights come down and the villain comes out.
Here we go.
My last panto of the marathon. Last panto of the year. And if I have anything to say about it, the last panto of my life.
"What's up crew?" calls out Wishy Washy, who is apparently a real character in this story.
"What's up Wishy?" we call back, exactly as instructed.
But it's not enough.
It's never enough.
We have to do it again. Louder.
"WHAT'S UP CREW?"
"WHAT'S UP WISHY?"
Still not good enough. Someone is not playing along, and Wishy Washy is determined to find them out. He splits the room in half, with a hand drawing a zig-zagging line down the middle of the auditorium.
"WHAT'S UP CREW?" screams Wishy.
"WHAT'S UP WISHY?" scream the other side of the room.
Wishy bounces over to my side."WHAT'S UP CREW?" screams Wishy.
"WHAT'S UP WISHY?"
He's found he problem. It's in the first three rows.
"WHAT'S UP CREW?"
"WHAT'S UP WISHY!?"
He's found the culprit now. It's a man in the front row.
He's called Rob.
Rob has to stand up. Turn around. And when Wishy Washy does the call, Rob has to reply all by himself.
He does well. But it doesn't end there for him.,
The Dame has got her hands on that name and she's not afraid to use it. Every flirtatious joke is directed towards Rob in the front row, with the shrugged message that if you sit in the front row at a panto, you're asking for it.
In all fairness to them, this lot are taking the brunt of the jokes. Taking the piss out of their own lines with an exhausted roll of the eyes every time the audience fails to react to a terrible joke.
A Super Soaker chase and Haribo-throw later, it's the interval.
Kids skitter around, pushing themselves through the rows in a reenactment of Aladdin's run around the auditorium that took place minutes before.
The children next to me return with some new found friends, who they proudly introduce to their parents.
One pair return bearing ice cream.
A single, solitary, tub.
"We got ice cream for you and grandad," they announce to their mother. "To share. So maybe you should sit next to each other?"
Mum laughs. "Did you? Maybe grandad should eat half and then pass it over?"
But the pair aren't having it, and seats are rearranged so that mum and grandad can sit next to each other and share the ice cream.
The visiting kids return to their seats, and soon it's time for act two.
Now I've been to so many damn pantos, I'm finding myself a connoisseur of all the classic elements.
Harrow's update of the Ghost Bench scene has us shouting "Behind you," about a bandage-wrapped Egyptian mummy on the rampage. That works well.
The choice of Jingle Bells as the singalong works slightly less well.
Especially when it the repetitions start to resemble a hearing test for the cast, with the room split in half once again.
Even poor Rob is picked on to sing, but it was just a joke. "Your face!" laugh the cast as Rob, no-doubt, wills murder on them all.
Finally, finally, we get to the end. The ensemble rushes off stage to fetch bouquets for the main cast members, leading to much confusion in the ranks as they pass them around.
Something tells me those flowers aren't going to make it home.
This cast is straight off to the pub, and won't be coming out until they the memories of panto are far behind them.