Spheres of silver, or gold, or red, or blue,

Or one of those with glittery powder sprinkled on and glued.  

Glimmering and glinting with reflected light

From Christmas tree lights all bright and sparkly and white.

Old favourite angel, looking down

At silver snow slopes of tinsel cosily draping round

The rich, deep green, bowing branches.

Ragged, ripped ends of chocolate-coin foil, all spent,

Mountains of scrunched-up wrapping paper rent

Asunder all too soon in one long-awaited, ecstatic moment

Dumped, decaying, municipal-machine-mulched,

Tree Forty Four, short-lived, for sure

Ends up in the butchers shop on the floor.

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It starts off slow

We smile because we know

For now we’re safe.  The show though

Will soon start to go with a little more flow.

Back to the beginning

The tune starts going

More quickly. People start looking

Some even start clapping

In time and stamping.

We’re still smiling,

But back again to the beginning

It’s now about trying

To keep going

As people keep clapping, and stamping

And singing and pushing and speeding

And shouting.

And with one big flourish it’s over

We’ve done it again, it’s always a winner.

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What do they want for Christmas ?

Every year the same

Thinking about gifts for others

A book, some socks, a game ?

It’s better to think of others

Than always to think of me

But getting it right at Christmas

Is never a certainty.

Have they already got one ?

Perhaps they’ve got two or three

Will they want chocolate golf balls ?

I wouldn’t if it were me.

Whatever you give at Christmas

And when the excitement mounts

Remember to think of others

It’s really the thought that counts.

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Friday morning.  I got up earlier than I would have done on a normal weekday, and didn’t mind.  Packing the car up mostly with things that I wouldn’t need, but nevertheless wanted to take, I remembered that I ought to check the oil.  It’s not something that I often do, but the last service was back in March, nine months ago, and I didn’t want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere at the side of a busy road waiting for assistance.  Assistance, I might add, for which I would have to pay extra, not having renewed my membership last time it lapsed.

It was still dark as I grappled with the bonnet release catch to get at the engine.  Getting the dipstick out was easy; it was getting it back in which was problematic.  After some minutes of trying I headed back into the house to find a torch.  I keep one in the airing cupboard upstairs because it’s always too dark to find anything in there.  There was enough oil.  There always is.  It was time to go.

My leaving-the-house routine is always the same when I go away for more than a day.  It starts upstairs always with the same questions. Are all the windows shut, and are all the taps off ?  The fact that it’s winter and I know the windows haven’t been opened in the first place is irrelevant.  Then there’s the decision about the central heating.  Off or timed.  The downstairs routine involves checking the oven about three times, and wondering whether to leave lights on, to make it look like someone’s in.  This time I decided to switch the central heating and the lights off.  It’s actually the same decision every time, but I still have to make it. 

Before I left the house, I rushed back upstairs to make sure I’d switched the alarm off properly.  I’ve gone off before and left it on snooze.  It makes an awful racket, and I didn’t want to annoy the artists next door.  I closed the font door behind me, locked it, and rattled the handle a couple of times just to check the door really was locked.  It was still dark, so the usual mental chime to clear the fallen leaves from the garden didn’t happen.  It would, though, on my return.  I drove away casting the usual backwards glance to check the padlock on the gates.  Lincoln Christmas Market weekend.  Messiah CD.  Tradition.

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Crisp, crunch, cold. Twinkly lights.

Sugar-dusted waffles, warm spices.

Hats, gloves, scarves, thick woolly tights

This year’s Christmas delights 

Goldfish bowl horses yellow red green

Up down round up down round

Cameras flashing, laughing, keen,

Go again if you pay your pound.

One-legged fire-wheels, cap on ground,

Tall, double-green, Christmas tree.

Elbows, toes, lost, found,

Bath Christmas market memory

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Terry’s on the urn; it’s his turn.

Tea for two ?

More like two hundred and twenty two.

It’s Tref’s turn too; he’s volunteered to do

The washing up

Of two hundred and twenty two teacups.

Sue’s out in the hall, collecting back all

Of Terry’s teacups

For Tref, in turn, to wash up.

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