We started on the sauce at 1100: an hour before the sun was over the yardarm, but – hey – it’s Christmas. By ‘sauce’, of course, I refer to the Harvey’s Medium Dry Sherry that we were quaffing, our traditional tipple while decorating the Christmas tree. Yes, it’s that time again.
We acquired the tree from the local farm nearly a fortnight ago (Blog 118) and it has been stored in the garden shed in a bucket of water ever since, lashed to several uprights using a spider’s web of ropes and secured with a round turn and two half hitches. I am not sure why we bought the thing so early, but the purchase satisfied the memsahib’s wishes and that made for a happy ship. Finally, the great day came for shaking the tree out of its stupor and baking it to death in a centrally-heated house. After much ergonomic debate the drawing room furniture was swapped around, moved again, swapped a third time, then finally arranged into its Christmas positions; the large round waterproof mat was laid on the carpet in the Designated Tree Location; I was despatched into the frozen darkness of the garage loft for the power lead extensions and electric timers; the drawing room french windows were thrown open to let in some Arctic air; and the shed was unlocked for The Ceremonial Entry. The Entry proved difficult. The water in the bucket had frozen solid so we were forced to move not only the tree, but its hefty bucket, full of ice, also. Some busy chipping with a cold chisel and hammer was necessary before we could get the tree into the house, and then we found that the tree had a distinct list to starboard. The cause was soon traced to a bent leg on the Christmas tree stand and I was despatched again, this time to a freezing cold garage, to knock the stand back into shape with the aid of a machine vice, a blow lamp and a heavy hammer. At last, all was vertical, the french windows were shut and out came the three huge boxes of decorations. Did you know that there is a hierarchy in Christmas tree decorations? Me neither. However, Jane was most insistent: we would use only the high class baubles and trinkets, the ones made of glass, first. Also, the little baubles were for the top, the larger ones for the bottom. The angel was not to reach its ascension until last. The cheap and cheerful decorations in the box (including my favourite little yellow and green aeroplane) were to remain there. I was baffled: why, I asked, did we not therefore ditch the cheap and naff stuff instead of keeping it, thereby reducing the number of boxes from three to one? This suggestion was dismissed with a stern look and an assertion that I was being a Clever Dick again – something which, apparently, I did every year at this time. I shrugged and pretended to hang baubles on the tree while Jane followed behind me and repositioned them. ’Twas ever thus. We managed to perch the new fairy angel on the top (Blog 118), though she hung precariously there with (this time) a list to port as if gazing down on us in benediction. We found our original and long-serving angel in one of the decorations boxes, which begged the question of why we had bought the new doll fairy angel in the first place: I could have bought some stainless steel shackles for the boat with that £17, but very wisely I held my tongue. I was already gaining a reputation for being seasonally difficult. At last, all was finished: the vast tree was decorated, girdled with many turns of Christmas lights, the sherry glasses were drained, the pine needles were vacuumed up, the choir from Kings College, Cambridge had sung its last carol, and the CD had moved on to Nat King Cole’s Christmas Album. Ready in all respects for Christmas.
Are the British and the Spanish the only nations that drink sherry? Surely not? Jane and I rather like it as an aperitif, traditionally drunk before the Sunday roast or – as outlined above – always when decorating the Christmas tree. We have ours chilled, in a schooner, as that adds an extra something to it. Being fortified wine, it is quite powerful stuff – it is advisable not to have more than two glasses on an empty stomach if you want to avoid a headache or pouring custard onto the Sunday joint instead of gravy; but, taken in moderation, it is a good start to a meal and very civilised. I have always found the dry sherries – the Fino – to be a bit like aviation fuel, best employed in driving a gas turbine, while the sweet sherries – like Harvey’s Bristol Cream – to be a bit too sweet; but really it is a case of different ships, different cap tallies: a matter of personal choice. The word ‘sherry’ is, of course, an Anglicised version of Jerez, the region in southern Spain where the grapes are grown. I believe it originally became popular in Britain after Sir Francis Drake sacked Cadiz (the rascal) and plundered many barrels of the stuff, then found it very palatable. Harvey’s in Bristol is possibly the best known of several English firms that blended and sold sherry, and has been going since 1796, though the company is now part of a larger conglomerate. Until comparatively recently, you could go on a tour of the Harvey’s warehouse in Bristol and sample the product; alas, all the blending of Harvey’s sherry is now done back in Jerez. Incidentally, the Spanish would pronounce Jerez as ‘Hereth” or something like that, the ‘z’ being pronounced as if one has a lisp. According to a very clever friend who speaks Spanish and knows these things, the ‘z’ is pronounced that way only because a previous Spanish king did, indeed, have a lisp and the rest of the country followed his pronunciation out of loyalty and, perhaps, to ease any embarrassment on his part. A sort of Iberian version of the King’s English, I suppose. I believe the lisp is not used in Spanish-speaking countries outside of Spain (though I may be wrong). So there you are – what a mine of information I am.
Unusually for December, England is going through something of a cold snap at the moment and it was -8C outside our house overnight last week. The heating is thrumming away as I write and this morning we awoke to a light dusting of snow, like icing sugar on a cake. The press are having a field day, of course: What? Cold weather in winter? Whatever next? Climate Emergency! Stop burning that wood and coal! The British media have moved on from their rather tired meteorological headline of “The Beast from The East” and are now referring to “The Troll From Trondheim”. Full marks to whoever thinks these things up. To be sure, it has been a bit parky and you don’t linger outside for too long. We have broken out the Arctic clothing. Jane and I went to a carol service last Friday and were suitably togged up, but she was so cold when we got back to the car that she couldn’t stop her leg from shaking and I had to take over the driving. The electric car came into its own, however, and supplied instant heat to the interior, the steering wheel and the seats; it had already justified its purchase when I had pre-heated it at home in the garage before leaving.
The carol service was at my Freemasons’ lodge and we were encouraged to wear outrageous Christmas apparel. I was all for going dressed as Balthazar, but was dissuaded from doing so by Jane on the basis of her not wishing to be associated with an idiot. In the end I went for my Mr Pickwick outfit (No 13 Rig) of tweed coat, green checked waistcoat, fob watch, bright green corduroy trousers, cream Charles Tyrwhitt shirt, and a bow tie featuring dancing penguins; the whole ensemble topped by a woolly bobble hat in the shape of a plum pudding. Jane opted for an outrageous fluorescent red sweater with a fat penguin on it, bought from ‘the cheap shop’ in the High Street, her head topped by a pair of antlers mounted on an Alice band. I thought we cut quite a dash as a couple, but the antlers came off very early on as they were uncomfortable, and Jane confiscated my nice plum pudding hat halfway through the ceremony, citing a lack of dignity for the occasion. Unfortunately, my lodge no longer has an organist so musical backing was provided by professional choristers on a series of CDs, fed into the hifi system by a brother pressed into service as an impromptu DJ. This would have worked well had the choirs had the same version of carols as we did, used the same verses and in the same order, and kept to a familiar tempo. Alas, these criteria were not universally met and we found ourselves belting out some hearty verses on an entirely different channel to the background music. Still, what we lost in the karaoke stakes we made up for in enthusiasm. The accompanying lessons and readings (one read by moi) were very moving and thought-provoking. Mind you, the whole lodge was like a refrigerator – so cold you could see your breath and everyone wearing their top coats, hence my attachment to the plum pudding so unceremoniously removed by Jane. At least it was warmer in the dining room, where we tucked in to a hearty chicken curry followed by apple crumble. And do you know, I made such a good job of my reading from St John Chapter 1 (according to the organiser) that he asked me to take over as organiser for the carol service next year. Well, that’s what he said. Anyone know a good organist?
Britain is on strike – a hark back to those halcyon days of the 1970s and 1980s when I was a slim, fresh-faced naval officer stopping gun runners in the Irish Sea, had more hair, and I’m Only a Poor Little Sparrow was in the charts. Oh happy days. To date (I think I have this right), postmen, railmen, nurses, lecturers, driving examiners, teachers, ambulance staff, Border Force officers, baggage handlers and some bus drivers are on strike on various days, demanding more pay. GPs are thinking about joining them. What is left of our Armed Forces will have their Christmas leave cancelled in order to fill some of the critical tasks spurned by civilians who are on a higher salary than the average squaddie. I am sure that plucky British Tommy, Jolly Jack Tar and Biggles are all delighted to be helping out – a refreshing break from that 24/7 tedium of defending our shores on a fixed salary with no overtime. Inflation (currently about 11%) is one cause, of course, but there is also the whiff of militancy in the air of a trade union organisation intent on bringing down the elected government, just like forty-odd years ago, as evidenced by the relish with which some union leaders have stated that ‘they will bring Britain to a standstill’. Nurses, the Armed Forces and six other public sector professions are served by Independent Pay Review Bodies which recommend levels of pay, based on the nature of the job, unsocial hours, and competition from other professions. The Bodies exist to compensate for the fact that some of those professions cannot (eg police, Armed Forces), or should not (eg nurses, paramedics), take industrial action. While the government is not obliged to implement the recommendations made on pay, it usually does so if it can afford it. Nurses and NHS staff have received annual pay rises and are scheduled to receive an annual increase of at least £1,400 a year from April 2023; they have rejected that and are demanding a 17.5% increase instead. The prime minister has stated that, if all the public sector workers’ demands were to be met, it would require funds amounting to £1,000 per British household. Put simply, the UK cannot afford it. As it stands, make no bones about it, people are going to die because nurses and ambulance workers are refusing to work. When I was a serving naval officer, my fellow servicemen and I sometimes felt hard done by because of the hours worked and the conditions we lived in; while the pay was adequate, we would always have welcomed more and sometimes the government could not implement the full recommendations of the Pay Review Body. However, we did the job as a vocation, a profession and with a sense of duty. It was what we signed up for, with our eyes open. We would never have neglected that obligation and nor would the present serving officers, men and women. Don’t fall over on the ice, folks. If you do then you will lie there until the next corporation rubbish lorry comes around in the New Year to take the corpse away. As long as the bin men don’t go on strike, of course.
Where do you come from? Have you ever voiced that as a polite opener at a formal social gathering where you don’t know the interlocutor? You have to start somewhere, and it is an improvement over the usual English ploy of discussing the weather. It is a ‘hook’, if you like: a means of getting the conversation going. Jane often uses it, either with foreign-sounding waiting staff in a restaurant or – enthusiastically – with black people who have a Caribbean accent: she wishes to establish a rapport with them as a fellow West Indian and talk nostalgically about goat curry, rice and peas, salt fish and akee or whatever. Well, she is going to have to curb her enthusiasm from now on because, apparently, asking someone where they came from is racist. A black British woman born in London as Marlene Headley, but now calling herself Ngozi Fulani, was outraged to be asked the question by Lady Hussey, an 83-year-old former Lady in Waiting to the late Queen Elizabeth II, at a charity function in Buckingham Palace. Ms Fulani was wearing traditional African dress and her name badge was on display at the function hence, presumably, the assumption by Lady Hussey that she was African. Unfortunately, Lady Hussey compounded her initial error of opening a conversation with Ms Fulani by not being able to reconcile the answer to her question with the woman’s African name, traditional African dress and (presumably) her south London accent. Or, perhaps, she was slightly deaf, being 83, and had not heard the reply properly. She persisted with supplementary questions, later described by Ms Fulani as “an interrogation”. Indeed, the verbatim account of the conversation (later splashed around the conventional and social media) seemed to have been recalled with a remarkable degree of accuracy, leading to at least one newspaper suggesting that the event had been taped. Whatever, Lady Hussey has resigned from her new position as a companion to Queen Camilla, and the Royal family has disowned her as a reward for her 60-odd years of loyal unpaid service. The rest of us have learned two lessons, namely that loyalty to the Royal family does not work both ways and that you should never ask a person where they come from, even if they are Scottish, Welsh, Lithuanian or whatever. Shocking weather we’re having at the moment, isn’t it?
Mind you, asking someone where they come from can be misinterpreted in other ways. I did hear of the genuine story of a little boy who was ‘helping’ his father with a DIY job when the boy suddenly said,
“Daddy, where do I come from?”.
Oh Lord, thought the father, the question has finally come. Why couldn’t he ask his mother?
Anyway he embarked on a long and winding story that involved hamsters and rabbits, touched on bees, and finally got down to the meat of the matter in graphic detail. The boy listened, spellbound, with the occasional look of revulsion and then said,
“I only asked because Peter, the new boy at school, says he comes from Chapel-en-le-Frith.”
Nice one Dad.
So, anyway, I was sitting here in my eyrie of a study, batting this stuff out to you good people while the clashing of oven trays below indicated that Jane was indulging herself in a bake-fest (cheese straws, I believe). Outside, the snow fell as a fine ‘snow drizzle’ and the temperature plummeted in sympathy. Just as I was getting into a full flow of literary indignation she appeared at the door.
“I’ve been thinking”, she said.
I put down my quill pen with a sigh, recognising the precursor of Another Job For Horatio.
“Do you think we should clear the front step? Apparently it’s going to freeze again tonight”.
Now any married man worth his salt (no pun intended) will recognise immediately that this question was couched in womanspeak, the coded means by which women pretend to ask a question of their menfolk, while actually giving an instruction. “Are you going to have another cup of coffee?”, for example, is decoded as, “I would like a cup of coffee.” I have learned this from long experience. I am not insensitive, you know. I have learned these things (third scar on the left at the top, as I recall).
So I looked at her and I came to the point.
“You mean ‘stop writing that blog, put a coat on, get a shovel and clear the front step’?”, I said.
“Oh no. I was just asking your opinion. I can do it. Of course, I shall have to get changed…”,
(at this point, I’ll swear she passed the back of her hand over her forehead in her Elizabethan gesture of, ‘…though I have the body of a weak and feeble woman’).
“OK. I’ll go. Boring old blog anyway”.
Out I went in the freezing cold with a stiff broom, skidding on the thin snow. She came out onto the front step, protesting and ostensibly offering moral support, but actually checking that I was doing the job properly (“…missed a bit over there”). Back in the kitchen with a warming cup of tea I protested that she had interrupted the flow of my writing, my Hemingway moment. How could I produce these literary insights, this original thought, if she kept interrupting me like this? Was Bernard Cornwell asked to shovel snow when writing Sharpe’s Waterloo? Was Agatha Christie asked to sew a button on Mr Christie’s shirt when she was batting out The Mysterious Affair At Styles? Did she not realise that my vast readership would be disappointed by the offering this month, would detect a discontinuity in the flow?
“You’ve been up there for hours on that blog. Time you gave it a rest.”
Ah ha. This was the nub of it. The message had been double-coded, Commanding Officer’s Eyes Only. I should have noticed. The double-hidden message, between the lines, had been,
“Get yourself back down here pronto. I want someone to talk to and help with the crossword”.
She is missing me, bless her.
I leave you with a traditional carol:
While shepherds washed their socks by night
All seated on the ground
A bar of Sunlight soap came down
And glory shone around.
Girls, do you know why you love your menfolk so much? It’s because we never grow up and we need your help. It triggers your inherent maternal instinct.
Keep smiling and try not to be offended by others – it’s Christmas and it’s what Jesus would have wanted. What’s more, we have another exciting year yet to come. At least, I hope so. Merry Christmas to you all and – if you are in Britain – don’t get sick or break anything whatever you do.
Now, where did she put that plum pudding hat?
12 December 2022
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 