Happy Christmas, Cilfrew

Wednesday December 24, 2008

Christmas Eve

“I don’t think we’ll do this next year,” I said yesterday morning as we waited outside the giant Marks and Spencer ‘Simply Food’ tin shed store at Fforestfach.  It was dark, totally, freezing, bone-chillingly, and early, unbelievably.

“Why ever not?” Graham asked.

“Sensible blokes are still a’bed at 5:45 on a winter’s morning, and as for getting up to come shopping at 4:30, you have to be totally looney to do that.   I’m getting too old to see the adventure side of it.”

“Rubbish.  You’ll enjoy it when we get inside.”

Normally, he’d be right on that score.  Somehow, though, the mechanical nature of the operation overcame the magic for me.  Grim faced people pursuing the best oven-ready table fowl at six o’clock in the morning in a large, freezing, tin shed may have magic in it for some folks.  For me it was on the stupid, purposeless side of unpleasurable.

We got it done, though, and all our Christmas fresh food was packed in the car boot by 6:45.

“Now what?” I asked.  ”Home?”

“Nope.  We need to pop over to Tesco’s to get one more present.”

“Oh. Joy. Well, perhaps their coffee shop will be open.”

“You never know.”

It wasn’t open, though, and was not going to be open until 08:00.  Through the barrier I could see sizzling hot sausages and hash browns under the hot lamps and, somewhere in the background, the aroma of tomatoes gently broiling.  The main store was open, had been all night, but refreshments there were none.  Torture.

And, yes, torture is another of those things I’m too old for.

I pushed Graham through the gift-buying stage with the promise that, if we went home, I’d cook us bacon sandwiches for a sort of breakfast.  And egg, too, if he fancied. No, not eggs, but his face went all smiley and crinkly at the prospect of bacon sandwiches.

It was still dark when we got home. The bacon sandwiches as a lure had worked, thank goodness.

“I’m going back to bed now,” I said when the munching had stopped.

“Not a bad idea at all.  I may well do the same.”

The rest of the day proceeded in much the same methodical, mechanical way, including another trip out, this time to Pontardawe.  Nice, and part of Christmas.  Just not Christmas as I like to know it.

Then, this morning, after one of the best night’s sleep I’ve had for weeks, I woke at seven-thirty, feeling really good.  Feeling fit to face the world.  Feeling like Christmas had come at last.

We had a loungie-lazy morning, slipping out to Neath for lunch and the very last of the ‘did we remember to get…’ items.  If there are any other things we forgot, they can stay forgot.

Back home, shortly before one, I poured my first Christmas drink–Corvoisier and ginger ale–and to0k it to the study window to look out over the valley and up to the mountain beyond.

“Happy Christmas, Cilfrew,” I said.  ”And happy Christmas, world, too.”