Countdown to Christmas
Bloody hell! It’s metrological mayhem as winter grips the nation once again, like an icy fist grabbing at your festive nutsack. Everyone appears to be in a total state of shock that there could very well be a white Christmas. The surprise is, to my mind, totally unfounded – just look at the evidence; all those Christmas cards showing jolly carollers, people going to midnight mass and revellers enjoying themselves, in the snow. OK granted, these are all paintings of jolly goings on in Victorian times but seeing as we are bombarded with these images every year for the last two years in December, can it really be that much of a shock when it actually snows before Christmas?
Well, yes, apparently. Next year’s Christmas card will be not so jolly people, not going anywhere, stuck in a check-in queue at Heathrow while the airport crew try and dig 747s out of snowdrifts. Christmas is indeed a time for friends and family, not a time for trying to jet off to the Caribbean for two weeks, as many people at Gatwick are currently finding out. Looks like this December the only bugger flying will be Santa.
Surely if you are stuck in an airport in the snow the temptation must be to start a rumour that terrorists have taken the place over in order to free the dictator of a banana republic, and see how long it takes for people to stop screaming and work out that that is the plot to Die Hard II.
And it certainly has snowed. This morning I struggled to the small shed in the garden where the lawnmower, garden stuff and, importantly, shovel, is stored. Shovels are fantastic for stoving in the heads of foxes (at least two visited the garden last night, looking at the tracks) and almost as good for digging your car out of the car park space you left it in that morning before the latest big dump. There are no airplanes, there was little traffic and what there was was hushed by the snow, it was a moment of almost perfect peace, with the church bells chiming seven – I could almost hear the frost crackling on the wood of the shed door. Standing there two things occurred; how little time we get to stand and listen to the bells; and what sort of person gets up to be at their bell rope for seven in the morning thinking ‘time for a really good peal!’. I’m betting hearty Christian.
All this snow and ice means that normal service has been severely disrupted – including Amazon and other on-line retailer deliveries. This means that unless I am to face alienation from the family come Christmas, I have to fit in some shopping, as well as trying to struggle into work.
This leaves no time at all for blogging. Hence, some of the chaps from the village have decided to step in as guest bloggers.
Well, yes, apparently. Next year’s Christmas card will be not so jolly people, not going anywhere, stuck in a check-in queue at Heathrow while the airport crew try and dig 747s out of snowdrifts. Christmas is indeed a time for friends and family, not a time for trying to jet off to the Caribbean for two weeks, as many people at Gatwick are currently finding out. Looks like this December the only bugger flying will be Santa.
Surely if you are stuck in an airport in the snow the temptation must be to start a rumour that terrorists have taken the place over in order to free the dictator of a banana republic, and see how long it takes for people to stop screaming and work out that that is the plot to Die Hard II.
And it certainly has snowed. This morning I struggled to the small shed in the garden where the lawnmower, garden stuff and, importantly, shovel, is stored. Shovels are fantastic for stoving in the heads of foxes (at least two visited the garden last night, looking at the tracks) and almost as good for digging your car out of the car park space you left it in that morning before the latest big dump. There are no airplanes, there was little traffic and what there was was hushed by the snow, it was a moment of almost perfect peace, with the church bells chiming seven – I could almost hear the frost crackling on the wood of the shed door. Standing there two things occurred; how little time we get to stand and listen to the bells; and what sort of person gets up to be at their bell rope for seven in the morning thinking ‘time for a really good peal!’. I’m betting hearty Christian.
All this snow and ice means that normal service has been severely disrupted – including Amazon and other on-line retailer deliveries. This means that unless I am to face alienation from the family come Christmas, I have to fit in some shopping, as well as trying to struggle into work.
This leaves no time at all for blogging. Hence, some of the chaps from the village have decided to step in as guest bloggers.
2 Comments:
By "chaps from the village" do you actually mean "alternate personalities" ?
Just wondering.
Very possibly.
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