I love the Muppets as much as the next guy, but enough was enough – Kermit and Miss Piggy can only replicate so much. This year I decided to go back to the raw text and read Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The story of frosty Ebenezer Scrooge threw up the theme of reflecting on Christmases past, present and future. My Nanna always says how fascinating it would be if furniture could talk; it observes and hears so much, and must have an anthology of wonderful real life tales to share. On December the 25th each year, the nation gathers together in clusters of family and friends, round Christmas dinner tables. But imagine if one of these tables could talk, remember and reflect. Table Talk Carrot and turnip - check. Sprouts - of course. Meat - yes, both kinds present and correct. Roast potatoes – no, no roasties. Oh here they come. Oo, ouch they’re hot! Haven’t you people heard of mats? Blinking’eck, they’re heavy as well. How many potatoes? Are you feeding an army or something? I think we’re set then: gravy, cabbage, stuffing, pigs in blankets, no cranberry sauce - but that always gets forgotten about and is left in the kitchen until the penultimate mouthful is had. Oh and the parsnips – there they are, carefully placed by Nanna Norma right in front of her own seat at the table. That way she can eat twice her bodyweight in the crispy slithers of sweetness by slipping them onto her plate when she thinks no one is looking. Well, Nanna Norma, they might all be otherwise engaged in a tangle of arms passing the sprouts, pouring the gravy and dishing out the roasties, but I know your game. I spot you, every year. Would you stop kicking me? You’d get a shock if I used your leg as a... well you’re in luck – I’m inanimate. Blimey, you can tell which the kids’ end of the table is. That will leave a bruise. Right, yes, time to say grace. A little peace and quiet. It’s the one time of year when the whole family, believers or not, bow their heads and talk to God. Amen. Let battle commence. It’s quite a view from where I stand: it’s like scuba diving in a sea of arms and dishes, spoons and plates, with the odd splash of gravy. Oh I remember that year when Bobby knocked the jug over and gallons of gravy went pouring across the carefully dressed, white table cloth. It got the tinsel, the serviettes, and the centrepiece that gets dusted off and makes its fleeting entrance each December. It’s a poncey piece of work that centrepiece. I stand here all year round, work three times a day seven days a week, and then it pops out of its box for one afternoon and takes all the attention. No matter; it will be back in the loft by January. There was quite a fuss over Gravygate of 98, but that was nothing compared to the explosive trifle which went splattering across the room as the first squelching spoonful surfaced last year. Or, the broken chair of 2006 mind. That was hilarious – well, not for the chair. Bobby must have leant on it the wrong way and the leg just snapped clean in two, throwing Bobby into his father-in-law who was sat beside him. Oh, I can picture his face now. It’s always Bobby isn’t it! He spent the rest of the meal wheeling round on the office chair. Ah we’ve had some fun haven’t we? Busy as it may be, I must admit, it is nice when the whole lot come together around me. I feel purposeful, even loved. I remember back when I was new – a wedding present. It was only the five of us then: the newlyweds and the in-laws and me...(oh and that blinkin’ centrepiece. He was there from the start – a wedding present as well - but let’s not talk about him.) Then, of course, Patrick died and Norma couldn’t be left on her own, so she came too, bringing with her a drastic impact on the parsnip supply and demand. Then the children came along, and now their children have arrived, and various husbands and wives have signed the register and, in doing so, have signed their names up for a place at the table. A few of Aunty Jen’s boyfriends have come and gone, but haven’t stuck around for long. Perhaps we scared them off! It has become quite cluttered, but I can deal with Christmas clutter. I get to have a little chinwag with my old friends the emergency chairs, which get dug out and make an appearance. I’m bursting at the seams and am stiff and achy until February, but we make do. It’s worth it. And next year there’ll be even more, what with the baby on the way. And that little old lady Mrs Bramcox who has just moved in next door. She doesn’t have any family, so no doubt she’ll be welcomed into this one and be invited here for Christmas lunch. That’s how it should be though. I just hope she isn’t another parsnip fiend, or Nanna Norma might find that she meets her match! Parsnipgate of 2017 – that will be another story to add to the list.
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Folding corners, breaking spines, making coffee stains - the antisocial behaviour of library protocol. It's all rather untidy and not liked by some people, but it's tolerated and often accepted with little consequence. Then we get to the petty theft of fines and missed due dates. But writing in a library book - well surely that's just vandalism! (The only library crime that can trump this is dropping a book in the bath so that it puffs up to be a marshmallow, wrinkling and expanding like a broken accordion.) But I am afraid I must say, with my head hung in shame, that this is the kind of criminal the people of Chester think I am. One who spends my days graffitiing literature and scribbling all over it as though it were a sketchbook. I was killing time in town, sat in the library reading a book which I had brought from home. An old man sat in the armchair opposite me and slowly readied an envelope for posting. Once finished, he got up to leave and spoke to me briefly. He said something along the lines of 'I hope you're not vandalising books.' I assured him I wasn't and said that I was just underlining in pencil to help me remember the important bits. Warmly and graciously he replied 'Well, I'm sure they won't mind that.' I smiled. 'Are you having a good day?' he asked. I answered and he went on his way. It was only after he left that I realised he'd probably thought the book I was underlining in belonged to the library, when in fact it belonged to me. What a criminal I must've seemed! So I have an unjustified black mark against my name, but in this case I can live with that. Aside from accidental guilt, what I can take away from this encounter is a lesson in pace and positivity. As I mentioned, this man took his time to delicately execute the task of sealing an envelope: finding the end of the sellotape, peeling it back and lining it up, selecting the right tool on his pen knife (after realising that the nail file was unsuccessful) and slicing the length of piece required, laying the tape on the envelope and pressing it down, standing up to restore the pen knife to its place tucked away in a coat pocket, and settling back down in the armchair. Job well done. He happily professed 'I have nothing else to do today' when insisting someone else went first in the queue, and explained the delight of retirement being that you need no longer rush. Now I don't know exactly what I am trying to say by articulating this little observation, but there is something very simply inspiring about it. 'Are you having a good day?' What does the answer depend upon? Which external or internal factors determine whether I decide I am or I am not? How about you - are you having a good day? The tense of this question manages to gently take me by surprise. It's not asking how was your day last week. It's not asking for a review of what's been, but rather a little stock-check of the here and now. Taking each little thing, each little task, each little piece of sellotape, as one of life's joys and pleasantries. |
AuthorMegan Kate Chester Archives
June 2017
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