Swimming in the sea with high tide at 10am was too much of a big call. Jack and I rose slowly, wanting scrambled eggs. No pepper though. “Shall we see if the local shop is open?” led to “Since we are on the move, let’s go to see my mum and uncle and grandparents graves.”
Graveyards are reasonably busy at Christmas. There were lots of people half smiling half sad, with flowers. I went and said hello to the lost. It’s the first time I’ve spent time with mum at Christmas since she died. It’s part of why I’m drawn to try and find a way back here that works with me. My old home ain’t the option anymore, 13 million or no. But there might be somewhere. It would be nice to be able to commune with the past without flying to it. It is a ridiculously quick commute from London AND from Brighton to Jersey, though. Even in times of plague.
Jack and I had double Christmas. After the graveyard, we found the only place in Jersey that was open and able to sell us pepper. We had 1pm breakfast of salmon and scrambled eggs (with pepper) and quail’s eggs and walnut saucisson sec. We had Bucks Fizz, which everybody is now calling mimosas because of the culture creep from the USA. We opened all our presents, and were put to shame by our new Jersey sister, who turns out to be Santa in disguise. Presents!! It’s joyful. We watched a Disney film called something like Ron’s gone wrong, and we fell asleep for a closely monitored hour. Or maybe passed out.
Back in London, on the set of Gatsby, Brian was running Orphan’s Christmas, carrying that ridiculous happy torch that was lit in 2005, and running it in his own wonderful manner. He was doing all the usual charging around like a maniac so I didn’t have to. God love that man. It was a very unusual experience to arrive at the Waitrose counter with the Christmas food shop and not have a bill running to a week’s work. I’m so happy that some of the London ones who didn’t want to be alone on Christmas Day had Santa Brian. I haven’t passed out on Christmas afternoon since the last time Christmas Carol prevented me from running orphan’s Christmas, and I ended up curled up on the sofa in Wales snoring like a lumberjack after a wonderful animated talk about Shakespeare with Tristan’s 90 year old actor grandfather Michael Beint.
Only an hour for me this time though. I’m the cook. Alarm off, and Jack and I were back in the fray, cooking bird and lots of vegetables and the all important Christmas gravy. We were trying to keep waste to a minimum but to still have a fridge full of grub. We tried to watch Die Hard 2 but we were knackered and only took half of it in. It’s not Turgenev though so that’s to be expected.
Now I’m in bed. One eye open. Bless the lot of you. I hope the season has been kind to you. If it hasn’t, and you’re feeling sad, reach out if you think ridiculous optimism will help. I’m pretty happy right now. Missing London. Missing Lou. But happy to be here where I’m from with beautiful interesting bonkers humans.
Merry merry.
X
AlBarclay 