Christmastising Part 1

It seems like a dim distant memory now, but Christmas did actually take place, and I was actually there. As mentioned before, the so-called festive season occupies its own unique niche in the time/space continuum; managing to simultaneously be interminably plodding and over in a flash.

Our arrival in Derbyshire and Turpins Cottage was relatively painless thanks to the marvel of GPS and clear roads. While a lot of snow had fallen, this was hardly the arctic blizzard predicted by the met office doomsayers, who said we wouldn't get two metres past our front door. The Le Grandbutte Massive were almost in full effect but for lower middle sibling and family. After tottering up some lethal snowbound stairs, we were welcomed into the bosom of the hearth and fed a sumptuous ahem, Chinese takeaway. Our ground floor room was a double-edged sword; far from the madding crowd and with its own en-suite ablutions, but with only a wall of glass between us and the increasingly frigid night air. Sleeping in your dressing gown and scarf might seem fun if you're five years old but loses its appeal when one hits forty. We survived the night but had no choice but to procure a heater if we were to make it through the next five days with all our extremities intact.

With the arrival of lower middle son the next morning our party was complete - 11 adults, check. 1 teen, moody, check. 3 kinders, off their heads with excitement, check. 3 infants, cute, check, and one jaunty Labrador - Christmas could officially begin. Actually, with the arrival of Sainburys, Christmas could officially begin, bringing as they did most of the food and booze right to our door. As we were first up for cooking duties, we had armed ourselves the week before with smoked keilbasa and cannellini beans to create our state of the art Polish Sausage stew, famous throughout the, er, room. No mean feat cooking for the ravenous hordes, though fortunately the three under twos weren't exactly sausage fans and left us enough for seconds.

Day three was one of those days that slipped in time.I recall very tasty spag bog for dinner and that's about it. Some went walking, some went sledging, some went shopping, some had another Boddingtons, perhaps that some was me.

Day four and Chrissie Eve huzzah! As one of our junior members was fixated with trains, the entire clan had been booked aboard the Santa Express, leaving from the appropriately named station of Butterley. The Thomas rip-off you see above was our iron steed, and despite some blind leading the blind navigation, we managed to make it in time...for the session after the one we were booked for. No matter, we're here now, let's not hurl abuse at DG for his inability to read a very large sign that the rest of us saw, all aboard, let the magic begin! Hmmm, someone appeared to have left the magic at home as we clambered onto this dilapidated throwback to a bygone era and made our way to the front carriage. (by the bar, naturally) The old girl wheezed into life and crawled out of the station as we sipped our complimentary Baileys dinkies and gummed our complementary Iceland mince pies. Never mind, soon we'd be flying down the tracks, marvelling at the glorious winter wonderland flashing past our windows, reveling in the glory of this noble engine's steam powered majes... oh, we appear to have stopped about 2 minutes outside the station, curious. After some furtive banging and clanging, we saw Thomas chuffing past us in the other direction and came to the sad conclusion that this was the sum total of the Santa Express. A plod four hundred metres out of one end of the station, an uncoupling, recoupling, then a short run out the other end of the station, woo and indeed, hoo. Neeeeverrrr mindddd, there was still a visit to Santa, hurrah, huzzah! OK kids, are you ready to see Santa? Here he is!! Yes, he smells a little like Old Speckled Hen, chip fat and the bitter stench of despair, but it's Santa! I say Santa, shouldn't you have the wee kiddie on your knee and not his Mother? Steady on Santa old boy, that's my wife. Oi Santa, do you want a punch in the..gerrorf...oof.. get himm...ouch...smack.

After a jolly visit with Santa on his marvelous express, we head back through the snow for Chrissie eve, delicious Beef Casserole and a rousing game of trivial pursuit. This game dwells in that same slow, terminally dull part of time/space In fact, it rules it with a leaden, ponderous fist. After three years in the Trivialpersuitosphere, we eventually escape and hit the fridge, our brains numb with trivia. To be continued...