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millionreasons
Drive a snow plough through your heart
Friday
We take the train from crowded Kings Cross (St Pancras), missing out the joys of the M1 this year. Pity the train doesn’t stop at Leicester Forest East; it’s always gratifying to see that there are people worse off than oneself:– the folks who not only have to work on Xmas day in a service station, but do so attired in comedy reindeer antlers. Whizz up to Nottingham and do a whistlestop tour of (Dave’s) grandparents and get a decadent taxi to Bulwell station with a driver who has lived in Nottingham for many years, but who nonetheless does not know his way around. Still, he wishes us a Merry Christmas and we get the late train to Worksop through Nottinghamshire, a thousand bejewelled decorated fairylit houses shining gaudily in the winter dark, and then a lift to Tickhill where more people (my parents) try to stuff food down our faces. It’s still 2 days to Christmas and I’m so full up. Settle on the sofa, where I hope to spend the next 3 days, and discover that my parents have bought a Sky package. This is slightly disconcerting as my parents are the last people in the world you’d expect to have satellite TV. They have 18 tickets for the theatre, classical music concerts and art exhibitions pinned to their kitchen memo board. Ringed in the Radio Times is such middle-brow fare as The Importance of Being Ernest, Rome and Rosemary and Thyme. Nevertheless, it is here and we surf through all the channels, including the PPV p0rn. The semi-clad stars look like they’d rather be de-gizzarding chickens in a factory in Mansfield than persuading people to sign up to 3 months of Playboy or Gayboy TV.
Saturday
Out to Doncaster to see King Kong. Donny seems to have changed somewhat since we were here last, there are strange space pods on top of the Arndale Frenchgate Centre, a new side street shopping arcade and a Caffè Nero. The time when a Doncastrian would pay no more than 70p for a cup o’ char are obviously long gone.
As for King Kong – well, nice special effects, shame about the film. Really, do the studio execs so want Peter Jackson that no-one dare tell him to CUT OUT AN HOUR? God knows what extra footage there will be left to put on the DVD – another 30 minutes of the camera lovingly panning over painstakingly assembled CGI perhaps. Afterwards, we wander around the town eating chips and watching revellers starting to tumble out of bars. We are the only people wearing hats and scarves.
Back in the village, we eschew the carol service for the pub. Being 32 sadly means that no-one from school is in anymore, apart from one friend who turns up 2 hours later. Even if I hated my schoolfellows, I still want to know what they’re up to nowadays - the Friends Reunited effect.
Sunday
Amongst my Christmas gifts are a home-knit scarf and a homemade necklace and I myself gave home-cooked onion chutney to a few folk. Nowadays, I appreciate the home-grown food and the homemade jumpers of my formative fish finger and Sindy-loving years. Disappointed that no-one bought me a goat however, I quite fancied one in the back garden to keep the grass down.
Spend the evening watching Dr Who, starring David Tennant as Alex Sharkey and Corrie, which has exactly the right mix of humour, tragedy and scenes of competitive game-playing suitable for Christmas Day.
Monday
Up early and out east through Gainsborough into Notts and then Lincs to do the annual visit to the seals at Donna Nook who are as adorable as ever, although I’m quite tempted to club them to death for their pelts, so cold am I. Moscow aint got nothing on the Lincolnshire coast. It’s at least –25°C when you take into account the howling gale wind-chill factor.
Then to Dave’s parents where, after nibbles and an awful lot of talk about the 60s from one set of olds to the other, we go out for a walk on the front to watch the sun engulfing the golden clouds and making the brown sea mauve. You may get the sunset on the west coast, but here the light shines directly onto the sea, transforming the waves, fairy godmother like, into snowponies rushing in onto the shore.
Tuesday
I’m dreaming of a white Holiday Tuesday
Watch the snow come down and melt immediately onto the salty eastern ground and the trees blow up a hurricane as Morning Mood on the stereo reaches its crescendo. Out to Skegness for a brief b-r-a-c-i-n-g run around the shops - at least it’s stopped hailing. The sun doesn’t so much sink as melt quickly behind the thick grey cloud carpet and we’re off once again, shuttling through the Lincs/Notts countryside, espying fairylights from far off towns and the settling snow gleaming in the darkness. Our carriage is freezing; obviously Central Train believe that, since they are doing us a favour by running trains at all considering that (i) it’s a Bank Holiday and (ii) there are ‘severe’ weather conditions, heating would be a luxury. The door between coach A and the toilet (which hasn’t been cleaned since 1997) has fallen off. Our wonderful privatised train service. Still, it gets into Nottingham on time, and we, desperate for warmth, venture into the Pumpkins station caff and thaw our icy paws on filter coffee (they have sold out of froth), before getting on another train to Beeston where we exit into the warmest most welcoming-est pub ever, but are then whisked off to Lenton Abbey before we can so much as order a hot toddy. Dave’s university friends are having a do, complete with a Secret Santa scheme, copious amounts of Baileys and Amarulu, stuffed butternut squash and stilton, apple crumble, all to the soundtrack of a double CD which I presume is called Now That’s What I Call 1991 – the songs by the Lemonheads, Carter USM, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, The Levellers, The The, the Senseless Things and the Wonderstuff make me feel like I should be drinking 20/20 and Thunderbird rather than Chenin and Sauvignon Blanc.
At about 11.30, my body decides that a fortnight of stuffing it with too much food and booze is more than it can take and it conks out on the sofa. My liver refuses to deal with more alcohol and my colon with any cream, chocolate, cheese, pastry, cake or mince pies. It wants to live on dry crackers and water for a week. I wake up at midnight and have to go retch in the toilet. Note to self: the body will eventually seek revenge.
Wednesday
I sit indoors gently moaning to myself whilst the boys stand around a car discussing jump leads and throwing snowballs at each other, before we are driven into Nottingham and eat a resentfully served but nicely prepared lunch at the Broadway, have a quick look round the shops (I wonder if Oxfam are having a sale on goats – there must be a glut of bovids somewhere) and then get our train through the countryside - where all colours have been banished except for brown, grey and white white white – and back to the Real World.
