Saturday 29th December

We tumbled into our house just after 11 on Thursday night, quite exhausted and soon to bed.  Yesterday morning we got up and blear-eyed walked around the town.  And amazingly it is still all here.  Exactly the same as we left it.  I almost had a fear that it had all been a dream and we would wake up to find whole streets demolished or that the house wasn’t ours.  The town is still delightful even in a somewhat damp but very mild winter.  All the shops have decorated their windows for Christmas and there are fairy lights in the square.  Everything is just as it was, and a wave of familiar contentment came over us as we realised that this is indeed our home.

So, the horrendous journey was worth it, though I wasn’t so sure at the time.  The place just seems so comforting and reassuring to me.  I sometimes seem to have lived my entire life on the run, dashing from work to shops to home, remembering birthdays and trying to keep everyone happy and everything on some sort of financial steady course that I don’t seem to have spent any time relaxing.  But here I do feel relaxed, and contented.  It is almost as if the physical distance means that even when I get an urgent e-mail from work to deal with I am far enough away that it doesn’t really matter.  What are they going to do, sack me?  If only.

So yes it was all worth it, even if I never found the glasses, but given the choice in future I might well decide to fly.

Friday 28th December

After my last blog I was anticipating the worst, and it did not disappoint.  We drove through torrential rain and gale force winds for miles, and each time I got out to walk or water the dogs I nearly got blown away.  So much so that I got quite a headache from the icy wind.  I tried to sleep once or twice but either the motion of the car or my own sense of desperately needing sleep to get rid of the headache kept me awake.

Then at some stop just south of Le Mans I was trying to do my coat zip up in a roaring wind, it was pitch black and two dogs were pulling me in opposite directions.  I yanked them back in frustration and tried again to do the zip up.  After I had got back in the car and we had driven about 50 kilometers further south I realised I couldn’t find my glasses.

I had taken them off when trying to sleep and had pinioned them on my sweater, one arm inside and holding them to my chest.  It was about eight at night, dark and wet and I decided they might still be in the car somewhere though we would have to wait until daylight to find them as the neatly stacked and sorted back of the car was a mess since the dogs had scampered over everything and there were coats and scarves and pillows and empty shopping bags all over the folded down seats of the Ford Galaxy.  I just couldn’t face turning round at the next exit, about 40 further kilometers on, turning round and going back to the exit prior to what we thought might be the Aire we had stopped at.  And the chances of finding the damn things in the dark and still unbroken seemed quite low; besides I had been assiduously avoiding having my eyes re-tested, as I knew they were deteriorating and I would need a new pair anyway, until the New Year.

I will buy a cheap pair of reading glasses and get my eyes re-tested when I return to London.  In a funny way it is one less thing to worry about – where you have put your glasses.  Also quite quixotically my headache soon disappeared altogether and it stopped raining and the wind dropped and I quite enjoyed the last 200 kilometres of the journey, especially as we skirted Bordeaux then headed for Marmande, Miramont and at last a signpost for Eymet.  Sixteen hours in the car, over 600 miles in France.  Was it worth it?    See Tomorrow.

Thursday 27th December

And as you read this we will be racing down the A roads of France heading for Rouen, so as to avoid Paris and the dreaded Peripherique which can resemble a car-park when luck is against you.  Then we head south towards Le Mans and Bordeaux.

I don’t actually look forward to the journey but the destination makes it worth it.  As Harry Chapin once sang “It’s got to be the going, not the getting there that’s good.”   He was singing about travelling around America  on Greyhound buses in the sixties,  but the sentiment is the same.  As a passenger all you can do is stare out at the road unwinding in front of you; at least the driver has something to do, deciding which lane to move into, and when to overtake that Spanish Juggernaut in the slow lane.

At least with the dogs on board there are plenty of stops, and as soon as we change gear and the indicator sounds both dogs wake up and start panting and jumping around.

The weather is likely to be wet most of the way, but mild too.  We drove to France three years ago in the winter, and there was quite a lot of snow and ice, which wasn’t much fun.  That was only to Le Touquet on the North coast so there was far less driving that time.

So here we go again, for the last time in 2012 – on the road again.

Wednesday 26th December

I have always enjoyed Boxing Day more than Christmas Day itself.  There is really quite a lot of stress on the day itself.  What if your loved one is not as excited with her present as you might hope?  What if you have negligently bought the same thing for your sister two years running?  What if she is actually rude enough to let you know?  What if you forget to ring one of the kids?  What if some disaster happens to spoil the day (One day I can remember a toilet had to be unblocked in the middle of serving up lunch – nice)?  What if you forgot to switch on the oven or have left the turkey in too long, or it is all dry and tough, or you burn the roast potatoes, or the sprouts are raw, or you cannot find the cranberry jelly or forget to make the gravy?  And even if the dinner goes off okay you miss the Queens speech, or there is a sulky row going on between two members of the family you should never have put in the same room together.

But Boxing Day, when it is all over, and you have completely forgotten just who bought you the scarf and gloves and have put away in a drawer the smellies you will never use and the books you will never read and the socks with Bart Simpson on that will go straight in the bin once the guests have all left – you can relax.  Put your un-socked feet up, eat far too much bubble and squeak and cold meat and pickles and cold Christmas pudding and snooze in front of the film you always wanted to watch and even miss the footie results – now that’s what I call Christmas.

Tuesday 25th December 2012

As a child I learnt this off by heart, so incidentally did my son Justin.  Every Christmas the words would come flooding back…..

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter’s nap

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.,

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

“Now, DASHER! now, DANCER! now, PRANCER and VIXEN!
On, COMET! on CUPID! on, DONNER and BLITZEN!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my hand, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

His eyes — how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
“HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!”

Sunday 24th December

I don’t really remember much about TV in the sixties, except White Christmas always being on on Christmas morning.  The seventies, when I had my own Telly was something else.  We couldn’t wait to get our hands on the Christmas Issues of Radio and TV Times, and would assiduously read them from cover to cover and mark in felt-tip pen our must-watch shows.  Remember this was before video-recorders and no-one had even imagined i-players so if you missed it – you missed it and would have to wait maybe a whole year to see it.  In fact I am sure lots of Christmas Specials never got shown again.  Must-sees were always Christmas Top of the Pops, innocent as we were of Jimmy Saville’s fiddling out of camera shot.  Morecambe and Wise was also unmissable, and then all the comedy Christmas specials which seemed to just get better and better each year. And then there were films.  Hard to imagine but you had to wait several years from Cinema release to watching them on the telly back then, so seeing a James Bond or Indiana Jones actually on your own t.v. for the first time was amazing.

I am fairly certain that when there were fewer channels and less choice we all enjoyed TV more.  How often has everyone in the office watched the same thing nowadays, so that shared experience is long gone.

Anyway I am sure the present generation of teenagers wil look back with the same nostalgia in forty or so years time, reminiscing fondly to a totally bemused young audience of X factor and Strictly and Celebrity in the Jungle.  Such is the rosy glow of memory – it was always better then.

Sunday 23rd December

Christmas day was so anticipated, and not just for presents – though these were far fewer in number and sophistication than today – but for the food and the general party atmosphere.  You started thinking about it after Bonfire night I suppose, as the nights got darker and colder and ice formed out of the condensation of our breath on unheated bedroom windows I would gaze out of mine onto fields and trees and wonder what Christmas would bring this year.   And I had no idea?  It was always a complete surprise.  There was hardly any TV advertising – I don’t think we got ITV until the early sixties, quite contentedly managing with the one channel – and there were hardly any toyshops as such.  Woolworths had a few toys bought in for Christmas and there was one electrical store Stannards which sold bicycles too.  You had to go into Ipswich to see any real toys, and that was a rarity.  In fact my Dad made a lot of my toys, and my mum made dolls outfits for the few bought dolls my sister ever had.

You went to sleep just like the children in the poem ‘The Night Before Christmas’ and dreamed not of sugar plums but probably the rich and bittersweet taste of Christmas Pudding.  We used to have a pillow case at the end of our beds, and despite our excitement would always miss our parents silently retrieving, filling and then replacing them at the foot of our beds.  As dawn crept up, or usually long before that I would wake and shouting to my sister drag my pillowcase into Mum and Dad’s bedroom and there on their bed we would open our presents, at least the ones from Mum and Dad.  We were usually sent back to bed for an hour or so before the real day began.

Saturday 22nd December

If you are still reading this, which I am certain you will be, then yet another loony prophecy will have been disproved.  And there have been so many haven’t there, that we don’t take them seriously anymore.  But why do people still insist on believing in prophecies and seeing into the future?  The future as everyone knows is simply unknowable, being the result of many individual actions and global and planetary and galactic and universal forces we are barely beginning to comprehend.  What we might be fairly certain of is that won’t be happening soon – at least not before Christmas.  But the gullibility of otherwise rational intelligent people never ceases to amaze me.  I actually lived through the nearest we came to the end of the world back in 1962 when Kruschev blinked and a nuclear war was averted, though I was more interested in how ‘Love Me Do’ was doing in the charts at the time.

The end of the world of course happens every minute of every day for somebody, and it will be my turn too one day.  If you accept that our understanding of the world is encapsulated in our own comprehension; that is within each individual person’s functioning brain.  Despite what is written down as received wisdom each of us has our own idea of the world, which may be limited to a small horizon where our friends and family live or may encompass continents and even bits of the wider cosmos which we may think we understand, at least for a while. But that knowledge is different for each one of us, in fact a different understanding of the world exists within each one of us, yes, even inside Britney Spears brain too.  And as we die off so one understanding, one interpretation of the world dies each time.  And so the World Ends for each of us as the last synapse ceases to transmit its tiny electric charge.  Luckily it may just be possible that the World also exists outside my own consciousness and the rest of you will carry on after my demise – but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Friday 21st December

There is a shop in Walton called ‘Guns, Fun & Camouflage’ and never was a shop so inappropriately named.  It actually specializes in air-rifles, and ex-army clothing and fishing gear but the linking of Gun and Fun seemed shocking to my mind even before the Sandy Hook massacre.

There has been a bit of a backlash in America too, the home of the Gun, over this latest abomination.  Obama trying to reach even a modicum of consensus with the Gun Lobby; shares in Smith & Wesson falling and Republican Senators falling over themselves to condemn lax Gun control.  But I suspect that very little will ever change.

Americans have a totally different concept of Freedom than Europeans.  In America it is the Freedom of the Individual to – well actually to do whatever their money and power will buy, and let no man stand in their way.  In Europe we realise that the Freedom of the Individual must be tempered by the Freedom of the rest of us, let us call it Society (sorry Maggie – but it does exist).  I am all for Individual Freedom, so long as the exercising of that Freedom does not impinge on or deny anyone else’s Freedom.  And that line which one draws is a constantly shifting and wavering one, as the pendulum swings between how much Freedom the individual is allowed and how much should be controlled by everyone else.  But in America not only is it considered absolutely a right (not entirely covered by the constitution) but almost an obligation as an American to be able to defend (by owning a Gun) himself and his family from lunatics who are stupid enough to be carrying a Gun.

Almost as stupid as the argument that in order to deter potential Nuclear Attack we must have an even bigger and deadlier Nuclear Arsenal in order to beat the shit out of them too if they dare to annilihate us.

Grow up, the lot of you.  Guns are for killing, so stop using them unless you want to wind up dead too.

Thursday 20th December

Years ago I had a fairly Aristocratic boss, who came from old money and had traditional values about it.  He insisted you should never spend Capital, but should try to add to it from your Income; Debt he abhorred.  Of course he probably had enough Capital to never need to incur Debt.  My father hated any form of ‘Hire Purchase’ as it used to be known and my parents would assiduously save up for everything.  I inherited this habit, but did on occasion take out small bank loans and always repaid them on time out of Income.  Then along came the seventies housing boom, and the feeling that if you didn’t buy a house you would be left behind.  And Mortgages were the only way to buy such an expensive item, so Debt became not only acceptable but a necessary evil, and considering the inflation of the seventies and eighties the only sensible thing to do with your money.  As your wages went up, your mortgage as a proportion diminished.

Then along came credit cards and some like me use them and pay off the Debt every month, but many juggle cards and rates and minimum repayments to almost increase their Income, even if at the same time they are increasing their Debt.  As long as someone keeps raising their limit they carry on.

And so Debt has become, not only acceptable but almost ‘de rigeur’; the only way most people buy a car is with Finance, in fact almost renting a car that will never actually be yours as you will trade it in before long and buy a newer model.  Our whole society is geared towards Debt, and now as Income in real terms is falling and most Capital is locked up in falling-in-value houses Debt is the only way out of the hole which Debt created.  And ‘Hello’ here on the scene – the latest manifestation of Debt – Payday Loans, where even your wages will be ‘mortgaged’ and soon too I expect will be three month and six-month secured loans, where a proportion of your wages automatically disappears even before your student loan, mortgage and car-loan are whisked away too, and guess what – you will never ever pay it off, it will keep growing like topsy until they own your car and your house and then you.  Welcome to the new world of Superdebt.