On the United Kingdom of Great Tiers

Folks the UK has gone mad. Well it feels like it has at any rate. Apparently food shortages now constitute of lack of availability of essential foods like lettuce and citrus fruits. Whatever will we do!?

I feel like the news outlets are contributing more to this mass hysteria and it makes me laugh, whilst simultaneously shaking my head in irritation. It’s like they go around finding random people in an otherwise well-stocked supermarket and asking them if they haven’t been able to find anything, and the one random guy goes ‘Er, yeah, the lettuce shelf is EMPTY. EMPTY, can you see? My wife is waiting for lettuce at home and THERE IS NONE LEFT.’

And then they pan over the shelves groaning under the weight of a million other foods, and finally rest the camera on a couple of empty plastic bins that once contained lettuce but now do not.

WhaTEVER will we DO!?!?

Now everybody wants to rush to Tesco to buy toilet roll and rice and eggs, for some reason, because doing their massive Christmas shop was not enough, somehow. And nobody is going to risk not having toilet paper because last time they ended up using lettuce instead and now there isn’t even that to fall back on.

Anyway it feels to me like our prime minister is a prime buffoon, who cares mostly about being popular hence the constant teetering on the edge of various rules and turning back on himself. He doesn’t know whether he is coming or going, to be honest, and reassures the public that he does in fact use a hairbrush when we know this is a lie, as he has been caught on camera mussing up his ridiculously blond hair… I think he likes looking like a deranged old owl.

London is now in Tier 4 which means total lockdown but that has not stopped people from the South of the UK travelling up to Tier 2 areas such as York for a quick pint, and getting arrested for doing so. Is that just an entitled attitude that southerners have? Because when us lot up North (I say ‘us lot’ but I am really a Southie by birth and heritage oh dear even though I do live up North) were in higher tiers of lockdown none of us took a jolly down South for a pint, did we? Well I didn’t hear of any of us getting arrested for doing so, at any rate.

Anyway I don’t care about Christmas being cancelled. I am heavily pregnant and have a lot of work to do in the 5 weeks before I give birth. I am so heavy, the heaviest I have ever been in my entire life. I am swollen and in pain and just generally feeling bLARGH. So I focus on other things to distract me from my discomfort and that tends to be the news, work and of course a busy toddler.

I just want to have my body back to be honest, and want coronavirus to piss off. I want to be able to lie on my back without feeling like I am suffocating and just… oh dearie me. It’s not a good time for much, folks, but it’s as good a time as we will get so we better make the most of it.

What are your Christmas plans?

Stone Cold Silent Still

It is different this year.

I can feel it and smell it and taste it.

There are more lights.

Twinkling through the night.

Signalling the happiness that seems to lie beyond reach but… oh hey, hullo, what is that softness I feel in my fingers as they graze the icy air? Could it be…?

Entire streets in my town are lit up. Santas climbing through windows and peering down chimneys and knocking on doors, carrying sacks of what we can only assume is hope. Desperate hope.

And people who never made an effort are making one.

It’s a bit like the American movies.

We take little one out for a small walk before dinner, when it’s pitch black under the heavy drapes of the winter sky at night. And all the houses are decked for conquest. Each competing with the other.

So eerie, if you stand still and let the breath cloud away in front of your face. Stone cold silent still, twinkling lights in the darkness. Sometimes faint bells ring and sometimes a disjointed jingle sears through the thickness of cold.

But then a pair of bright eyes meet yours from down somewhere by your knees, and tiny little fingers grasp your solid warm ones, and little feet stamp stamp stamp excitedly, and it’s not eerie after all. It’s joy. We all need a sprinkling of joy.

I see a light at the end of the tunnel. I am so so scared, but so hopeful too!

What are your plans for the holiday season this year, folks? Can you see and taste and smell it yet?

Grumps

Time to get my fluffy socks and woolly jumpers out, because the sun’s face is buried under layers of thick cloud and the cold is beginning to seep through the damp wooden beams, slowly making its way under my skin. It’s going to be a cold autumn.

Anyone else feel that way yet?

Also, the shops are beginning to stock Christmas-ware shamelessly! Time for my grumpy Grinch-itis to slowly poke it’s black curly head out with a colossal scowl.

Also, I love the word ‘grumpy’! It’s so cosy and warm, somehow. Like a frowny day in pyjamas, warm blankets and an excuse to stay in bed while the storms rage outside. Grumpy is less serious than ‘irritated’ or ‘sullen’ or ‘surly’ or ‘testy’. It’s more on par with a gruff old granddad with a heart of gold. Who doesn’t like a gruff old granddad with a heart of gold!

Grumpy cat is the perfect image for how I feel about too-early Christmas goodies in the shops.

What Is This Madness?

An old joke in my family is to buy me hats for Christmas. I have a rather large assortment of hats, actually. Boxes of them.

I have a large blue Mexican hat with bobble tassels. That’s my favourite hat. I usually wear it out when it’s dark, and have creepy old Indian ladies glare at me.

Well, that actually only happened once. Terribly daunting, though. Killed myself laughing at the time, however.

So, why do I get hats? Well, it’s an old joke, you see. A take on the Mad Hatter, as it were. A pokage at my belief, of sorts.

I don’t believe in Christmas, as we have established. Therefore I wait until after New Year to give all my ‘Holiday’ presents. People used to think this was very pretentious and annoying of me. Like I was shoving my beliefs down their throat. They were also mad because they wanted more presents. Greedy pigs.

Anyroad. I said to them, “Well, humans, the thing is, you’re shoving YOUR beliefs down MY throat, by MAKING me celebrate with y’all”

That shut them up quickly enough. So, my parents and siblings agreed to let me give them their presents after New Year’s day, and I agreed to receive hats for Christmas. Well, I didn’t actually agree. They just do it. Rude cows.The Christmas presents I do get, I generally don’t open until well after Christmas. I generally don’t get them from family. Which is a good thing. Jolly good. Capital. And the rest of it.

This may be a little far fetched. But it is a fact, and a fact it remains.

Either way, I got seven hats today. One from each family member.

One hat was miniature. So, I put it on my mini globe. She feels the cold, poor dear. Then I got a bowling hat. That was green. So droll. I am wearing it as I type. I also got a beret, and it is red. I also got a tophat, which is green also. Like ‘That Green Gentleman’ (Shoutout to Panic! At The Disco fans!). I also got some other hats, but they were general hats, and not very specific hats. All in all, I am terribly pleased with my hats.

Hatrific day, as it were.

WELL, I SUPPOSE IT’S CHRISTMAS.

It’s Christmas, folks.

Huzzah.

If you’re into that sort of thing.

I expect one would be expected to leap around in joy, clapping one’s hands, and releasing odd little squeals that tell of the inner hysteria, trepidation, frenzy and elation one is supposed to be feeling.

Well let me tell you that I am not doing any of those things. I am eating my decidedly unfestive dried figs, drinking my decidedly normal cup of honeyed green tea, and sitting in my decidedly messy bed, writing this decidedly melancholic blog.

My room also smells decidedly odd. I sniff at it through the blockage caused by my chest infection, and think to myself, yes, this is a decidedly mousy smell. I expect my little micies are running rampant under the floorboards this holiday. There is simply no getting rid of them. You catch one, and there’s always ten to the one you’ve just caught. It’s all very daunting and morbid, but in the grand scheme of things (I seem to be thinking about things in the grand scheme very often these days), I suppose it isn’t much worse than a burnt cookie. They will eventually leave, or we will eventually leave, and they won’t be much more than a spatter of a memory, too faint to be of any consequence.

At least, I hope so.

Anyways. Back to this Christmas fiasco. It just seems to me to be desperately overplayed!

It really does! All this tree buying and ornament hunting and gift wrapping and special singing and odd candling and remarkable cheering and frantic stressing and worrisome argumenting and ridiculous spending and extravagant, mindless indulging.

I was watching a vlog the other day, where this young lady was going out to BUY Christmas day clothes! How absurd! One already has a wardrobe full of fancy beauties, and one is going out to BUY nothing but a velvet T-shirt, for Christmas day! Now if it were something special, like a pretty dress, or something party-ish, then yes, go for it! But it was so decidedly something like all the other things she owns. What is the point in wearing something so decidedly like every other thing you own!?

I just think it’s all rather toshy, really.

Especially considering lots of humans really want a piece of bread for dinner, and nothing else.

Especially how they prepare you, FORCE you into this festive mood, MONTHS before the actual occurrence. It’s all a terrible mistake, really. People stuff themselves full and count down… all for what? A sack of presents, a bit of fairy lights, and some dinner?

And the significance? Oh please. Jesus was not born on the 25th of December, darlings. He wasn’t even born in the winter. He was born somewhere around the eighth month, to be exact. So, really, now, this whole Christmas palava is a bit of a joke.

So. What I have to say about christmas is, I enjoy the fact that there is rather a tonne of chocolate at a great price in the shops, and there are rather good sales after the event, but really, when it comes down to it, Christmas is just a material event, laced with materialism and things, and everybody loves each other and all that, but sometimes they don’t. and people’s expectations are raised too high, and they are pressured into spending a foolish amount of money, which they would benefit much more from investing elsewhere, and really, c’mon, stop allowing yourself to be pulled in by the shameless and rather obvious bit trickery the world of retail is indulging in.

There. Now I shall finish my tea, and eat my figs, and go to sleep, because I am poorly, and being poorly is nice, in that one doesn’t have to work as much. Even though one has to fit into a dress by mid January, so bit pointless of one, really.