We’ve been busy chucking all the food we didn’t eat and which has since congealed. Fortunately, it was minimal; scraps of the festive ham, a few root veg, some chilli peanuts. As sure as the telly adverts turned to holiday ones on Christmas Day eve, it settled into familiar patterns, her watching the Strictly thing, me reading my new Clarkson’s Farm and Bob Mortimer novels, the central heating cranked up and the wine box rapidly emptying.
We’ve not been well. It started on Boxing Day morning and curtailed my hoped-for trip to PR to see us hammer Oxford United. It also meant a suspiciously late call to Paula’s manager, as she was meant to be working on Boxing Day. I did the call for her – general flu symptoms and headache and upset stomach, all of which were mostly true. I’m the better liar. It was true, actually. Our en-suite bathroom smelt like a charnel house on the Tuesday. We’ve since been circumspect in our choice of repast. I blamed her mum. The turkey we had on Christmas Day round there was third than turkey should be. The crown as well.
Christmas Day plodded a bit. Round to her mum’s at 12, dinner at 1pm, sat with her mum and her wheelchair and her Christmas carer Danielle, in cheap paper hats from cheap Wilko crackers (Joke: Where does Santa go for gardening equipment? It was a Ho,Ho, Ho shop. This got a snarky little chuckle from Paula’s mums’ carer, the sort that sounds like you’ve popped a lively bottle of lager). The Brussels were softer than my knob. The cauliflower florets melted like snow in July at the merest touch of fork. I wish I’d done the cooking. The gravy was Bisto, but thick so it resembled a chocolate fountain. Oh and pud WAS a chocolate fountain. With bits skewered on metal forks to dip into it. I noticed one such titbit was cut-up Xmas pud. Paula’s mum can’t drink, so while the rest of us were lumbered with Liebfraumilch from Asda, she had a glass of Schloer. I found myself mentally saying ‘Only one day’ over and over again. Quiet, nice to see her. She liked our pressies. She got me jokey stuff; willy warmers and chocolate-covered dates and a jumper from Primark that I’ve worn once and ruined already with a red wine spill. I would wash it. But it will shrink to nothing. That’s my excuse.
We were home by six. Paula’s mum moaned, natch, but we had a good excuse of needing to be up early. She’d threatened turkey sarnies and chips for tea. Besides, we both felt a bit nasally.
Terry rang on Christmas Day morning, about eleven, from what sounded like Tony and Sandy’s downstairs lavatory. He wished us a “Merry Chrissmuss, like” and then described his festivities in Braintree. His sounded much the same. “Tone’s cookin’ the turkey an’ we’re ‘avin’ roasties, brussels, carrots, them fings wot look like dead man’s fingers, oh, par snips an’ ‘e’s added a glug’o’port ter the gravy. The wife smells like she’s fallen in a barfful of Anais Anais an’ Sandy’s goin’ frew the change, keeps ‘avin’ ‘ot flushes’n that”. He broke off to sing the Jonah Lewie chorus “Wish I woz at ‘ome fer
Chrissmuss”. Then he wound it up by saying “Gotta noo Eve’s Sant Law-rent shirt and jumper, nice, blue and black, me colors they are. We got up at nine. Kids’re older aint it? Just ‘ad a drop o’ the old bubbly, Mo-et. Nice one”. He wished me a happy time at P’s mum. I could hear the sniggering in his voice.
Ill every week. Well, I say “ill”, but it was odd, like a bug or something. It didn’t put me off the drinks, but I’ve not eaten that much, just graced. Paula’s the same, although I noticed we’d run out of turkish delight by Tuesday and of ice cream by Wednesday.
Good win against Oxford. I watched the goals go in on Sky. Then switched over to Amazon Prime and watched the PL. Paula stayed in bed all day, sleeping and watching catch-up telly. I bought her mugs of hot chocolate with Baileys in it, and the odd can of red bull for sustenance. It used to be Lucozade in orange plastic wrap when I was a kid and had a bug. How times change……
I forgot we were playing Pompey on Friday as I returned to work. Birmingham was dead. Properly dead. No shoppers taking advantage of New Year sales, very few people in the office, two City fans, one Villain, the Wolves supporters, all depressed that we, despite being in League One, are looking the best of the footie sides at present. The Wolves fans wore their Xmas pressies, Wolves jumpers and scarves. I got baited because I never got anything Town-related. Like that somehow makes me a part-time supporter.
Home by six, ordered a chinese takeaway and Paula came down and tucked into the roast duck and pancakes and sticky chilli beef. I switched the local news on at ten and found we’d somehow drawn 2-2 with Pompey. When? How? What? Perhaps the Wolves fans were right?
Tel’s home today. They stayed for New Year, spent it round Tony’s neighbors at their New Year shindig, complete with finger buffet, fireworks and cava. And a seventies disco. Tel was still whistling “We are Family” down the phone when he rang yesterday. “Hangover’s gone at last” he muttered. He sounded like a Cockney Carlsberg ad voiceover. He took three bottles of his favorite brandy and they all mysteriously evaporated.
Back to normal very soon. Hope the town are. That gap has worryingly shortened over Christmas. Barnsley are coming good as well. Let’s hope we don’t do a typical town on the run-in. See you all soon. happy 2023
