So here it is...etc

Christmas has begun. I know this because I’ve had to do the two rituals.
First a tree needed to be bought so it was off with a fiver and a clip in my step. First stop was Focus in Shepton Mallet where I was reliably informed that they had nearly run out and they only had 6 foot trees left at £34.
£34? If I were to buy an acre of woodland for £5000 and smother it in baby Christmas trees, I could grow, within 5 years, 2000 6 foot trees and at £34 a tree I would have £64,000 and every 5 years. I would only have to work one day a week and quite hard in December. That would be nearly £13,000 per year income.
Putting these tempting thoughts aside I left Focus and its empty aisles and drove to a couple of local garden centres - still £34 - and then, slowly losing the will to live, gave up for the day.
I explained to Mrs Peach that we could just put some lights around the big green houseplant we have in the lounge. She ignored me and suggested that I’d better get up early the next morning and go and find one but not to pay more than £20.
So no pressure then.
The next day she arose and descended to find me moving the big green houseplant to various points in the living room and doing my botanical best with the aids of strategically tied canes to make it look pyramidical enough to fool her. She wandered past asking what time I was going to get the tree.

The weather was inclement and I didn’t fancy driving into the local woods to see what they were selling there although to be honest it wasn’t the weather that put me off but that I’d done this before. A few years back I’d driven into these woods and through a gate that you’ve never noticed before into what seems a film set from the movie, Southern Comfort to be met by, what one assumes, are actors from Deliverance. You never see these people at dentists, nobody does. I’d bought the first tree offered and tried to fit into my car which was a tad shorter than the tree and managed to bend the top over so that it made a snug fit, all under the watchful chuckles and guffaws of Clyde and his banjo playing and far too serious looking friend. I don’t know what I paid but it felt like a ransom.
It took four of us to wrench the tree form the car’s interior when back at home as it was indeed a snug fit and then had to cut two foot off it. Unfortunately not being au-fait with the ergonomics of festive flora I wasn’t aware that you are supposed to cut any length from the bottom. This was a year where the fairy was laid off, but to be honest it looked quite good, as if the tree was continuing through the ceiling into the bedroom above, beanstalk style.

I’d decided that I was going to go to B&Q in Glastonbury. The trees there were various prices and I grabbed the first one that said £19.98. I had to assume that this price tag meant that there must be a competitor nearby selling for the higher price of £19.99. The trees were outside and so I mauled it indoors to the counter where I had confirmation to what the ‘Q’ in B&Q stands for. I’ve often thought it could be a Zen British thing to ‘Be’ and ‘Queue’. This time the tree, neatly netted by George, fell easily on to the back seat of my Citroen C1. I carried it into the house and was asked, I thought rather sarcastically, whether this was a free tree that came with the real one. There is nothing wrong with a 3 foot tree I retorted and said it’ll be 4 foot once in a bucket.
Ah, the bucket.
We eventually found the bucket asleep under some very thorny unknowable evergreen bush sleeping off, what looked like, from the stains over its exterior, a night on the cement.
Now just some sand needed. I got lucky here as I’d bought a bag of sand last February to re-lay some wobbly slabs. I’d just been planning to do this chore this very weekend as well, but as the sand is now a tree wedge the job will simply have to wait.

The tree was up and that brings me to the second ritual, decorating the tree, although it’s not the decorating bit but the retrieval of the baubles and lights that reside up there, in the loft that furrows my brow and makes me think of Guinness.

A job I swore I’d do after putting the decorations back after last Christmas was to install a loft ladder so with Mrs Peach reminding me of this very fact off I went into the dark place, to behind the shed, the place where the cats take their discarded kills, to cuss and sweat and try to make myself a contender for You’ve Been Framed to get to the large step ladders. Once captured, one has to navigate (Mrs Peach comically used the words crash and bang) through the obstacle house trying to avoid future painting repairs. Of course the steps don’t fit perfectly under the loft hatch and I can only thank Yoga for the postures I had to adopt to gain entry. Testing my arm strength and whether my eyes really could pop out I lifted myself in, straight into a head and upper chest covering of curtained cobwebs to only then discover that the light had been left on for the last eleven months.
At this point, Mrs Peach who had been giving me a live running commentary of my progress to this destination had mysteriously disappeared. I had found the Quality Street tin with glittery baubles and the coil of lights relatively easily but it wasn’t possible to get back on to the steps with them in my hands so I hailed her. It seems that she had decided to go to the farthest point in the house to maybe wash her hair or to possibly do a bit of gardening or just to pet the cats.
Fortunately one of the neighbours heard my cries and had come round to alert her. I was up there an hour, where did she think I was? looking through the box of old photos?
The steps are now sitting pretty, only partially blocking the bathroom door until sometime in January when the whole process will be repeated in reverse although I’m not certain that I turned the light off up there.
But it’s done, the tree is up and sparkly.
The teenager came in soon after singing to his ipod, ‘F*** you, I won’t do what you tell me’ which is apparently some reference to the Christmas number 1 and not just verbalization of his usual behaviour.