Wednesday report

Chris Tyrell is here, visiting from Vancouver. I've written about my beloved Chris often before - we spent part of a week in Provence together this past July, and have been best friends since 1975 - through the enormous ups and downs of our adult lives, the end of his long-term partnership, my own divorce, his HIV diagnosis ... letters, phone calls and now email and Skype have kept us in almost daily touch since my move from Vancouver in 1983.

Together, we fall into a companionable Darby and Joan rhythm - he thinks I am too speedy and Toronto, so I try to slow down to his Vancouver pace; I think he's a crotchety old fart who's also one of the most sentimental, emotional men I've ever met. We argued almost instantly upon his arrival - he told me that though he loved the movie of Charlotte's Web, he would never read the book. "Ugh," he said, "too syrupy." I nearly smacked him.

"It's written by E.B. White!" I shouted. "One of the best writers ever! It's not syrupy, it's brilliant." No, he would have none of it. Infuriating and wrong. As I am, often, to him. Thus, our friendship is always interesting and endures.

I think what's going on in Copenhagen is hopeful - that the whole world and its most important leaders are paying a great deal of attention, finally, to global environmental issues; perhaps true progress will be made. Chris says it's all nonsense because they're not dealing with population growth. What's the point of regulating global warming if people keep having big families and swamping the planet? he says. Okay okay, a point.

We agree 100% in our opinion of S. Harper, our representative of Canada at Copenhagen - our dear country, which has always thought of itself as one of the good guys, now shown to be one of the baddest. Sad sad sad.

Am I getting into the Xmas spirit? My son is coming over tomorrow to help pick a tree and put it up, so I guess so. There's a wreath on my front door, stockings hung up in the kitchen and baubles strung on my indoor hibiscus, which is suffering from black spot and almost leafless - does that count?

Tonight, the playwright and actor Morris Panych and the designer Ken MacDonald - who got married in 2004 - are coming for dinner, to see Chris. What illustrious company, such tremendously talented, accomplished and interesting men. Chris has cooked potato chickpea masala dhosa for dinner; the house smells like New Delhi. We went yesterday to Little India to get ingredients - outside, a bleak December day, little puffs of snow and feeble grey light, inside, the rich spices and bright bangles of India. I'm looking forward to tonight.

And tomorrow, I'm going to go to a small independent bookstore to do some Xmas shopping - including a copy of Charlotte's Web, one of the most beautiful books ever written, for Chris.