Christmas 2022

On the afternoon dog walk yesterday Ezra said, 'you always say that' as I noted that the festive day had been so far possibly the best ever. How nice to think that generally all of the Christmas days had been 'the best'. Scanning the years I can only actually think of one that had been truly awful - for me anyway - which mostly featured staring at the interior of a blue washing up bowl during a bout of food poisoning while everyone else ate, drank and made, I assume, merry downstairs. 

My childhood Christmas days sometimes took place at another family's house where Mum was being employed as a temporary housekeeper - slightly strange as we stayed in a distant upstairs part of whichever house it was while the family festivities carried on downstairs. I can recall sneaking downstairs and peering in at a huge Christmas tree rather like an impoverished Dickensian character. The more usual ones were spent with relatives in Dorset, wonderful days full of endless present giving in their cosy thatched cottage, walks in the countryside, terrible 70s TV . . . 

                                                                 Christmas day 2022

Yesterday was pretty much perfect as a small family Christmas day: usual routines to start with, nut roast, wood fires, dog walks, marvellous presents, Mark's Christmas cake, chats with lovely family and friends, board game and finally, the Christmas film go-to for us, black and white 40s, Champagne Charlie. (Tommy Trinder)

Ezra's present of hand made wooly wrist warmers featuring the very famous (it's a family thing...) words, 'Hi, I'm Barry Scott'.

For all those I know, love and appreciate, I hope you all had a most warm, memorable and happy day. We raise a glass of (the one intake-of-breath festive indulgence we purchased) a local, prized bio crémant - to you all.

Happy Christmas 2022. 

                     Mark's Christmas cake featuring my mother's Inuit seal soapstone sculpture 

The meaning of stuff

I, bizarrely, decided to clean the mantlepiece this morning. The one downside of a wood fire is the vast amounts of dust. I don't usually notice it, and certainly no one else does - perhaps the big dog; she was staring fixedly at a huge, grey cobweb yesterday. Maybe household disorder disturbs her? We'll never know.
Anyway . . . I did - dust, and it was amazing how gleaming everything now looks, in a grey February light at least. And it was an interesting nip back into the past for a while as I thought about the objects that have become fixtures in the part of our front room that becomes so important in the winter months.
A recent friend of mine told me over a cup of tea that she has thrown everything away, or at least given away. Everything. Just a box or two remaining. How incredible that is; I am in awe of anyone who could accomplish such a feat. Sometimes I imagine us moving to a smaller place, and honing down the STUFF. How would you choose what should stay or go, to quote The Clash.
Here's a picture of a small section of the mantlepiece (without dust) and a brief history of the stuff that resides there.

from the left:
A dragon soap-stone letter seal: unusual in that it was from Mark's past. Most of the household clutter is of my doing - other than records and instruments that make up about 50% of the habitable space.
It was his dad's and resided on their mantlepiece until Mark 'borrowed' it to carve his own version in wood; I have it here on the desk and it's rather good.

A hippo that I think came from Brick Lane Market, donkey's years ago. The mantlepiece holds many other wooden creatures from that era.

Metal number 6 from a railway line; a find from a vide grenier/car boot sale, and my lucky number.

A piece of tile from the original Limoux tile factory that Ezra spotted on one of our 'let's walk around a part of town we don't know on this drizzly day' walks. Ale being significant in our family as the title of one of Tommy Trinder's drinking songs in Champagne Charlie, probably our most watched film: ever.
'Ale owd (old) Ale, give me a glass of owd Ale, nothing quite like the juice of the hop, nothing quite like when to know when to stop - give me . . . Ale owd ale' . . . etc.

A flattened fork from another walk around a vineyard. It was the only thing left in an old vinegrower's hut, and I think has featured in a previous post - touched by it as I was.

Ah. Something I could never get rid of. I will have to be buried with it.
A photo of a proud 1960's lady with her hair all 'done nice' in her garden arranging her collection of Pekingese dogs on a coffee table. What more could you want in a photo?

I suppose I could get the really VITAL things into one box if I had to choose: a bit like Desert Island Discs for stuff.

Tommy Trinder/Carmen Miranda

Winter nights: log fire, snoozing dogs and the odd box set of film favourites.

Being fans of Ealing Comedies, and Tommy Trinder, we splashed out on a set of his films.

This section from Fiddlers Three must rank as one of the most sunny pieces of film ever made. The face, the moves! Hilarious, and wonderful lyrics/script: quite cheeky in places for 1944.

We are vastly impressed as Nero says at the end of the dance. (Trinder's entrance is at 1.22 if you are pushed for time.)