A proper Christmas blessing!

 

My angel lurches drunkenly. We have placed her near the top, as befits angels, and she perches uncertainly at an angle, overshadowing the star and the miniature wooden stable placed strategically beneath it. Maybe the star is shining in the east; I'm not sure of the geography here. I think actually it may be to the west as it seems to point towards the  coast. Never mind. In any case, the angel is bending near the earth. She seems to have mislaid her golden harp, but her anti-war slogans seem as much needed as ever.

 

I have invented a new Christmas blessing. The Jews, it seems, have a blessing for every eventuality and despite not being Jewish myself, despite this being the season of Christmas, not Hanukkah, the festival has its ancient origins in Judaism and there should therefore be a proper blessing for it. 'May all your branches rise upward' seems this year to be a suitable one. Scouring the shops and garden centres for a tree in mid-December, we were disappointed to find nothing that matched the romantic dream. Trudging around in the rain - nothing deep, crisp or even in sight - we discovered Christmas had been modernised once again. The fragrant Norway Spruce was nowhere to be seen. Coming downstairs in the morning to be greeted by the heady and nostalgic aroma of pine resin was a non-negotiable part of the recipe for that perfect Christmas we all seek, so regretfully we got back in the car and moved on, hoping that maybe the next makeshift sign on a piece of old board would point the way to the right sort of 'Xmas trees'. Finally we went full circle and ended as we had begun in a small florist's shop whose trees we had already rejected. They were small, misshapen and spindly, but cheap. If we couldn't have what we wanted, and clearly we could not, we were at least going to score on price. Even the woman in the shop warned us:

 

"They're rubbish Christmas trees" she said. "But an old man who grows them himself brings them in every year and I haven't the heart to tell him. Everyone wants the perfect tree nowadays, but you can have this one for a tenner if you want."

 

A tenner sounded good and anyway, we didn't believe her. No-one really means that the stuff they're selling is rubbish. Do they?

 

It was. There is nothing more depressing than a drooping fir tree, hence the blessing. Once decorated, ours stood in the corner and wept. We selected our lightest, most delicate baubels and tried to push them as far as we could up the branches, but nothing could disguise the droopiness, as our poor little tree hung its head in shame. 'May all your branches rise upward!'

 

I wonder why I think of angels as 'she'. Biblical angels come with names like Gabriel and Michael, never Barbara or Jane. Maybe the Christmas angel has become tangled in my subconscious with that imposter, the pagan Christmas fairy who dares to adorn many trees. All through my childhood she was an annual visitor to the topmost branch of our tree, decked out in a frothy white dress and a tinsel headdress and waving a tiny magic wand in case Santa failed to do the business. To be honest, in those days her magic seemed to have more success than the ministrations of our more authentic and Biblical angel. Certainly, the magic of the tree was lacking this year, but then perhaps we treated our angel badly, without proper respect. Everyone knows that angels are not 'she', do not wear frocks and, because of their awesome nature, do their best to calm our nerves by always announcing their arrival with those immortal words: 'Fear not!'

 

One further point - just to clear up any misunderstanding and pave the way for a better Christmas next year - my angel, despite appearances, is not drunk.

The Harlech Hedgehog

It's hard to concentrate sometimes. In the face of unadulterated, egocentric prattling at top volume, I am defeated. The old lady who sat opposite the prattler was at her mercy. But so were we all. The old lady said very little. There was no space. The big voice droned on. It was penetrating and abrasive and I found myself shrinking in my seat, unconsciously trying to make myself smaller to escape the unwelcome battering of the ears. In fact, it reached further than my ears; it threatened to permeate my very soul. Does she have children, I wondered? How have they been affected?

 

Publicly, and at top volume, she ran herself down. Her hair was flat; it had no curl, no BODY. This last word she pronounced boldly, to its full sensuous effect. No BODY. When sprayed with lacquer and brushed out, she continued, it looked better, but she looked like a spiked hedgehog. Her mother was beautiful: "prettier than I am!" she confessed, a tone of slight surprise, mingled with jealousy, betrayed in her voice. Like a little girl in her party frock, she waited to be admired, waited for one amongst us to rush to the rescue, denying this terrible admission. But no-one obliged.

 

The conversation ranged over a variety of fascinating subjects, all, it seemed, designed to show her in the best light, better than name-dropping. It was an odd counterpart to her self-abusive comments. We started with the lawnmower. "I'm just going home today" she began (I started to get excited), "if I have time" (my heart sank), "to set up my robot." My ears pricked up at this, despite myself, and I settled down to listen. Too bad that all conversation with my husband was impossible; shame that even private reveries were constantly interrupted. This was riveting stuff. It was true, it emerged - or at least it seemed to be. She really did own a robot lawnmower which she was keen to put together and set on its way, doing what robot lawnmowers do.

 

Her initial, self-deprecating manner changed. She was playing to her audience and we were all, I am sure, now obediently playing the game. The monologue moved on, past the lawn, to the inside of her, no doubt, sizeable and prestigious home. She spoke of robot vacuum cleaners, of one in particular that had been no good and therefore passed on to the daughter (well, of course!). She spoke of "the boys", who failed even to flinch as the robot came right up to them. Octavius and Tiberias appeared, it seemed, to be her canine friends, but no less a part of the family. She mentioned mobile phones the size of credit cards and was evidently familiar with all kinds of up-to-the-minute technology. I wondered what the old lady was making of all this.

 

My attention wandered as I noticed her, with her back to me, fidgeting a little in her seat. She was trapped, her walking sticks placed at a distance from her, and perched precariously on one side of a wooden bench of the kind that pub gardens favour. We were sat out in a cobbled courtyard outside the cafe, basking in the early spring sunshine that was reflected gloriously from the whitewashed cottage walls. But the old lady was clearly uncomfortable and I mentally practised leaping from my seat to catch her as I saw her topple backwards in my imagination, splitting her head open on the stone pavement, as could so easily happen if she nodded off.

 

Perhaps this was just the eventuality that her kind friend was guarding against, keeping up her continual stream of scintillating, well no, not conversation, maybe monologue. When my full concentration returned we were talking about webbing and upholstery. We ranged on through the full gambit of furniture restoration. She had an intriguing style. We passed back and forth with dizzying rapidity. One moment she was displaying her many and varied creative talents and the next it was like listening to a chapter of accidents worthy of Paddington bear with a paintbrush. Having completed her masterpiece of restoration, somehow the afore-mentioned canine friends were let into the workshop and wrecked havoc. She should have known, she berated herself. But the paw print, dead centre of her artwork, that she discovered next morning, was as finely executed and as perfectly placed as if she had done it herself.

 

The lunchtime concert was over. The soloist helped the old lady to her feet, disentangled her from the bench and fetched her walking sticks, so she could totter across the cobbles, leaning on her companion's arm. They were off to entertain elsewhere, ready for a quick look in the next door design outlet, with its array of upper class fabrics and pure wool, tartan throws, before going home to robots and doggies. I felt a little ambivalent about their departure. Peace and quiet was wonderfully restored, but alas, the show was over.

 

Harlech, Wales