Skip to main content

A difficult time of year


No, it's not been an easy Christmas.  I wanted to feel it, you know, all the joy and goodwill, but it's been hard work from start to end.  It always seems harder, doesn't it, when everyone else is out enjoying themselves and you're stuck in a dreary grind of endless details.  Like you're in a little gray world of your own.

You wouldn't believe how much paperwork there's been.  I'd put that application in from my parents' address months ago.  Never thought it would come to anything, but all of a sudden I got a call to say there's a council flat available down there.  I couldn't say no, could I?  Not in the circumstances.  Even though it only meant moving to the other end of the sodding country.  So we packed up quick as we could and stuffed the Astra as tight as a Christmas turkey, and then - then what happens?  "Oh I'm sorry sir, there's been an administrative mistake.  You can't move in until the end of January."  Fat lot of good that is, when the lease runs out on our old place in mid-December.

You'd think someone could have put us up, wouldn't you?  No, everyone was away or had family coming to stay.  Merry festive season and all that.  I'd found some cheap hotel, but when we got there they knew nothing about our reservation, and were very rude about it.  We ended up in the roughest B&B you can imagine.  I thought we'd have been better sleeping in the car, but it was a good thing we didn't, as it happened.

Why?  Well, you know all those horror stories of the husband having to deliver a baby on the way to the hospital?  We didn't even get that far.  Oh yes.  Right on the stinking carpet.  I was absolutely bloody terrified, I can tell you.  He came out all right, though. Mother and baby both doing well, as they say...

No, but there's more.  We'd just about got the mess mopped up, when someone started hammering the door half off its hinges.  Turned out to be the down-and-outs from the rooms upstairs.  I thought they'd come to complain, but you know, as soon as they saw the baby they were transfixed.  You should have seen it - these rough guys all huddled round cooing over a tiny bundle.  So I went off to make everyone a cuppa, but when I got back I couldn't even get into the room.  Three more lads had turned up, kind of Arabian looking, but what they were doing there God only knows.  They didn't seem to have much English.  To be honest I was so exhausted by that point I didn't much care.  I just wanted it all to be over so I could get some sleep.  They left us some pricey-looking presents, though.  Is that some kind of foreign thing?  Giving expensive gifts to complete strangers?

Yeah well, it's over now.  We moved into the flat yesterday.  Mary's been amazing through the whole thing, and Baby J's cute as can be, but I tell you something.  I hope I never have another Christmas like that one.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Erewash Valley Trail: Ilkeston

You could spend a lot of time following old canals and railways in the Erewash Valley. This walk included parts of the Erewash Canal, the Nottingham Canal, the Nutbrook Canal, and the Stanton branch line, and I could have continued further along any one of those, if I'd had the time. I started in Kirk Hallam, which is mostly a post-war housing estate with a distinctive outline on the map: the main road to Ilkeston through the middle, and a loop road encircling the village. It looks like the London Underground logo. I parked at the lake at the top of the loop. There was a sculpture commemorating the nearby Stanton Ironworks - the ground remembers the roar of the blast  read the inscription around the base - and the remains of a lock on the Nutbrook Canal. Heading towards Ilkeston, I crossed a former golf course, now a nature reserve called Pewit Coronation Meadows, passed a large sports centre, and was soon in the town centre. There was a general impression of red-brickiness, with l...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ten books that shaped my life

Ten books that shaped my life in some way.  Now that wasn't a problem.  I scanned the bookshelves and picked out nine favourites without the slightest difficulty (the tenth took a little longer). The problem was that, on the Facebook challenge, I wasn't supposed to explain why .  Nope.  Having picked out my ten, I couldn't let them go without saying why they were special to me. These books are more than a collection of words by an author.  They are particular editions of those words - taped-up, egg-stained, dust-jacketless and battered - which have come into my life, been carried around to different homes, and become part of who I am. How to Be a Domestic Goddess Well, every woman needs an instruction manual, doesn't she? Nigella's recipes mean lazy Saturday mornings eating pancakes, comforting crumbles on a rainy night, Christmas cakes, savoury onion pies and mounds of bread dough.  If you avoid the occasional extravagance (20 mini Bundt tins...
3 comments
Read more

Cake creations

Many of the cakes I make at work come from a book of designs, mainly produced by Decopac . We are supposed to only make cakes from these designs. Often, however, customers come in with a picture or idea and ask if we can make it for them. Always up for a challenge, I usually agree. I then try and get a snap of the finished article with my mobile phone. And I thought you all might like to see what I do all day... A co-worker asked if I could draw frogs. Funnily enough, owing to an incident in my teenage years (involving a friend with a boyfriend called Frog and the signing of end-of-school shirts), I could. This cute cupcake cake was the result. This is what his family wanted. I'm not sure what David thought of the idea. However, my newly-acquired airbrushing skills were put to good use. See, I haven't forgotten all my chemistry! Not quite there, but it's quite difficult to make an irregular hexagon into a kitten. You will notice that this is another cupcake cake...
2 comments
Read more