yet another time it comes on Christmas, as Damon Runyon nearly said, and it comes thick and spicy, fast and creamy, intoxicating and joyous. Unlike the young, who sleep like Christians, the whole night through, we old’uns take our repose in maybe two hour tranches (thus affording regular inspections of the ‘facilites’) so we have ample chance to observe that December ceilings are crowded with angels rehearsing their Christmas gig. As the dulcet tones of my tinkling recital on the ‘euphanism’ are muffled into silence by night’s blanket, idly glancing into the velvet dark, beyond the window pane, my eye is often caught by faint, bobbing lights, down at the farm. Then, if I strain my ears, I can just hear the rumbling murmur of the shepherds and camel drivers bickering over the best billets in the draught-free corners, and the sweetest straw. I stumble and grope my blind-fingered way back to my pit, and while waiting to see if I have any more sleep in credit, I while away the darkling seconds by trying to remember if there’s anything I’ve forgotten that I wanted to make a note of, so I wouldn’t forget it again.
in this instance, there is- I’m supposed to review the last year’s events and non-events, with its peaks and troughs, ebbs and flows and cetera, before schilling up Christmas.
So the first item, only just too late to get to press in last year’s letter’ was the loss of our dear Puppy dog, Phoebe. Briefly- she had had a ‘lump’ for some time. Eventually it had to be removed, the malignancy remained, and she finally decided she’d had enough. She stopped eating and drinking, and three days later, on the Friday before Christmas, I got up to find her asleep on her bed, not to wake again. You might think that four days before Christmas was a hell of a time to sustain such a loss, but in fact, we were too busy to grieve- she couldn’t have picked a better time, plus the fact that the weather was mild and dry, so I was able to dig her a nice comfy bed in the garden.
he next headline was very different. We had a conservatory built onto the back of the house, and a porch to the front door, and a new roof on the house, which also spawned refurbishment of the attic. It wasn’t ‘arf exciting. The conservatory is like another room to the house, but in the garden. It also has a shower and WC against the day I can’t get upstairs, or can’t get upstairs fast enough. The actual conservatory space is 5 metres by 3- beg enough to house the entire Christmas exhibition this year, without the bother of having to strip the lounge and dining room, cart it all upstairs, hang the pictures, then within a week, having to reverse the whole business, and reinstate the house for Christmas. The porch is just a glass box, stopping the draughts, and affording somewhere to stand in the dry, while you search for the door key. But the attic! Oh, the attic! ‘The Management’ has given it to me for a studio! My own not so little world- more space than I ever had when I was in harness- 6yds by 3 and it’s all mine! I have work space, framing space, storage, all my books. I go up there with Hoagy Carmichael, Phil Harris, Red Ingle, Nellie Lutcher, Cab Calloway, all singing to me out of the magic box. I can make as much mess as I need to, and when I’m summoned downstairs to the culinary realms, I can just leave it all until I come back to it.
ohn continues to thrive on all fronts. Over and above the day job of computer tinkering at Nottingham Trent University, he is now a ‘published’ photographer, i.e. his work has appeared, for pay, in something folk buy. His Dee-jaying will soon take him to Shepherds’ bush Empire, regularly. In his words- “Life is peachy”.
iriam and Simon moved to Oxford, in preparation for Simon to start a 3yr course at Wycliffe College, (started Sept.) in Preparation for the Church ministry. The Church of England is sponsoring, funding and housing them. They have a 2 bed. Semi, with garden and garage, in Headington, a leafy suburb of Oxford. The college is in walking distance.
hen came the most wond’rous tale of all. Miriam and Simon paid a flying visit, to deliver a present to Valerie. It was a sewing pattern for a baby’s jump suit. Miriam is pregnant- due 3rd April. Valerie is to be a Nannie, and I, a Grand-dad! For nearly 30 yrs, and even more so now, I’ve been afraid to turn over in bed in case I fell off the tail-gate. If you don’t know that story, get someone to tell you; I haven’t space, here.
rade is- levelling- is the best term. I lost the Ludham Bridge outlet when the restaurant changed hands. Now I just have Ramblers at Thurne in the season. I did the three shows again; not profitable in the short term, but accrued commissions tipped the scales, in each case. An extra outing to Gt Yarmouth Christmas Market was satisfactory, last weekend, then a moderately successful exhibition in the conservatory, here, over the last two days. Again, there is the promise of ensuing commissions.
o there you have 2008, all wrapped up and beribboned. So now we can haul up the shutters, pull back the curtains, open the floodgates on the festivities and stoke up the boiler of the jollity engine. Miriam and Simon will come to us for a few days (spanning Miriam’s birthday) before Christmas. Valerie and I will have a very relaxing Christmas, home alone, then we will go to Oxford to have a family Christmas with Simon, Miriam and John. I didn’t say- the scan-meister said that Miriam is carrying a baby girl (they wanted to know) so we will celebrate the birth of a baby boy, while looking forward to the birth of a baby girl. And all Betjamen’s steeple- shaking bells cannot with this simple truth compare- that I’m going to be a Grand-dad.
hope you have as many Christmases as we have, this Christmas, and that they be every bit as juicy and joyous, as tuneful and tasty, as melodious and mellifluous, as aromatic and as adoring as ours will be.