Sunday December 14, 2008
Christmas came a’calling today, and very welcome, too. It was sunny and soft, though rather chill, so we sucked on our Hall’s Mentholyptus lozenges, wrapped up warm, and popped on out to Neath. Graham wanted to find some new outdoor Christmas tree lights and we both of us wanted to get some fresh air and sunshine.
I truly fancied a Neath version of La Baguette du Jour but, sadly, they do not open on Sunday. Further down towards Morrisons we discovered a new-to-us coffee shop/cafe, named, enigmatically as nRg (you have to pronounce the letters to get the silly phone-text joke). Graham does not like new places and dithered, trying to get a glimpse of the inside, and a sight of the menu before committing.
“Oh, come on, do,” I said. ”You’re a big boy now. We’ll never get the benefit of our new town if we aren’t brave now and again.”
He straightened up, smiled, adopted a determined expression, and disappeared through the door faster than I could follow. Follow I did, though, to find him crimson with embarassment and spluttering a lot because his spectacles had steamed up instantly. I laughed gently, and we joined the queue at the counter.
“How come your’s don’t steam up?” he said.
“Easy. When the weather’s icy I just don’t clean them until I’m ready to settle down in evening. Grubby spectacles don’t steam up anywhere near so fast.”
So, anyway, we took a really good home-bake mince pie with our coffee, and enjoyed the place.
Back home we stood in the sunshine before coming back in and, while I was making home coffee and tea, Graham took a photo of our large tree, in a corner of the living room. There’s another one, not a proper Christmas tree, growing in a large pot outside the ‘front’ door, and that now has a garland of lurid LCD lights a-sparkling. I don’t think we’re very likely to do much else in the way of decoration this year; somehow it’s not truly ‘our’ home yet, not fully, it’s not, as witness the living room carpet we inherited with the house. It’ll be different next year, just you wait and see.
Christmas tree, 2008
So, lunch and siesta, to be closely followed by a big “Ah, that’s sad.” Kathy Staff, the British actress who played Nora Batty in Last of the Summer Wine has died aged 80. We both of us loved her, and her character, very, very deeply, and our world is sadder without her.
