boxing day

My:
back aches;
eyes are puffy and Bronson-squinted;
thighs muscles have forgotten how to relax - relax, dammit;
fingers have cramped into mitten shapes;
neck wouldn't be loosened by whiplash.

My adversaries are scissors, selotape, ribbon, tags, bows, nigh on a dozen rolls of paper (assorted designs from jolly to tastful, quality from tear to look at it to roofing felt), and a biro.

Six boxes to go. That's boxes of boxes, packets, tubes, whizzes, fizzes, meltings, mouldings, readables, seedables, maleables, pallatables, scrapables, playables, sayables, displayables, drinkables, thinkables, thimblefuls, nimbles, bakeables, anti-acheables, scratchables, hatchables, hackables, packables, wearables, swearables, bewareables, jokeables, soakables, elopeables, watchables, socksables, gloveables, loveables, containables, maintainables, sustainables, ports, stardusts, at least two varietals of wind ups, four giant toblerones, and a sausage. Not just boxes.

Seconds out.

tinkers

Today our earth leans furthest from the sun. The days will get longer now; life begins again. We washed the windows the better to see it.

We fed the birds, swept the paths, and finally chipped away the hefty guano of mortar left against the chimney breast by, we assume, dodgy roof workers from long ago and soon far away.

Sticky from winter dales and fens of royal icing, I stroked herbs in from the garden to flavour a stew. It breathed with a spiced apple cake to smudge our house with incense.

Old scents unconsciously conjoured. Not a one unfamiliar along the warmth of time people have been pulling the suckered ivy and mistletoe into their homes, welcoming the succubus.

Word got round, as round words do, that there was a welcome here. Something short of two thousand years ago they began to move in, hootching us up for a seat by our fire. We shared the stew and the spiced apple cake; we shared stories. Such stories.

Our songs hooched up too: ivy made a little room for Mary, holly berry for a baby, winter sun for winter Son.

Their caravans arrived. They unrolled the longest extension lead you ever did see, plugging it into our waking solstice hills to light their star.

bright light

I think I might sort of have this Christmas thing in hand.

Most of the cards are out or written or I'm aware that I've yet to write them.

Some stuff to make the bracelets is scattered across the table. The rest of the stuff is somewhere else.

Pressies are in or out of the loft and thrown into our bedroom. One is even wrapped.

The cakes are cooked, stoked with booze and marzipanned, ready to royal ice.

We know where to buy sprouts.

The bird possibilities are in the hands of the random god of Christmas Eve reductions.

G and I are fed and have wine in a glass and in the garage.

The kids are relaxed, excited and watching Gremlins.

Christmas this year is a furry, warm thing. Companionable. I just have to remember not to get it wet or feed it after midnight.

candle

Secret Santa gave me a lovely scarf today, lovely and tasteful. A nice thing. He had put it in a pink gift bag and attached a friendly label.

I was made up. My Caliban soul struggles so in its ooze, it's a marvel to me to be given something so pleasant so pleasantly. I want to say ugg and dab at it gently with my forefinger and opposable thumb.

Some people can do it, can't they. Their Venus is doing this right thing somewhere in a good place, making things more pleasant for them and one and all, while my ole Cappy Venus in the 2nd is busy digging a hole for a few smudged coins.

Take A, again. Father Christmas came into school today, for carols (and Last Christmas) round the tree. Every child glowed. Every one. Even the doubters queued for their selection box and glowed. When it was over and the children were watching the reindeer fly from the school field (they said) a pleasant faced man in jeans poked his head into the staff room. It was A's dad. It was Father Christmas. This woman has got the Venus so much her father is Father Christmas. Father Christmas!

The Venus types in the staffroom (those who can put a lovely scarf in a giftbag and make someone happy, and those whose father is the big F.C) were talking about Jo Malone the other day. I should, they urged, try some stuff. It's lovely, they assured.

This evening I looked. I had a blurred idea that it was black on white, like an Everton mint, but it's not, is it. Jo Malone is black and cream. Creeeeeeeeam. Clear shapes, clean shapes, taking up a certain allocated space. Predetermined and determinably priced.

I filled my eyes right up to the back of my skull with those clean lines and clear spaces, black on cream, trying to snuff it up through the monitor. Tommy came in from the rain with piss in his long fur, stomped across the keyboard and bumprinted companionably on the arm of the sofa. I lost the page and felt the ancient despair of hovel life.





Please, good reader, note that at no point during this entry have I said FORTY QUID FOR A CANDLE? FUCK ME!

in season

G groping a bigger, fatter belly under his jumper. A belly making thick, brown paper noises.

A cardboard box beneath the old school desk. Look three times, notice it on the fourth.

Quick, thin plastic and thick boot noises through the hall, up the stairs.

Nothing to see here. In biro.

A spilff of London cash withdrawals on the online statement.

He's having that affair.

control

I forget the other glitter trauma. Not broken laminator liability indicator nor glam rock noddy nit tiny traumas, the other one, the proper trauma.

We inflict homemade cards on people we like and people to whom we are related. Would have stopped years ago, but bizarrely the poor inbred monstrosities are repeat requested from relatives we never, ever see. I like a bit of glitter on a Christmas card. It stays put on the shop-boughts, detaches on homemades.

You'll know or suspect how much glitter a ten and a seven-year-old sprinkles on a homemade card. (Think of a 1970s child with a bag of sugar, a big spoon, and a bowl of cornflakes. Double it.) This was our 2006 Christmas card effort.

Arrh, we thought, if it spills out of the envelope they can hoover it, brush it off, or just glitter. It's Christmas.

G gave out his work cards. A chap ripped open his envelope, pulled out his card, was showered in the rebel unstuck glitter, and froze. He froze, his face froze.

He had a glitter phobia. A loose glitter phobia.

Seems that, as a very small boy he had been in a car accident. Glass had exploded as car glass does, glittering him into his very own puddle.

I've printed off this year's card. It needs a bit of Fabulous. I bought two pens at the weekend: silver and gold.


I passed the marvellous Mrs Ch today, rubbing her scalp as she chatted to Year 1/2 about the stuff she's finding on her pillow in the mornings. Hair? I asked. Glitter, she replied.

g.litter

I think I sort of filled an industrial laminator with PVA today. I think I sort of might have broke it. A bit.

There's nothing to incriminate me, luckily. Nothing but both school administrators and the Year 1 teacher. Oh, and the head. The head, and the tail of glitter that spooled with me from the pool of glitter I sort of might have rippled around my boots.

Glitter incriminates. You! You were doing Christmas! You have glitter on your cheek! And in your hair! Where? Where in my hair? There in your hair! Right there!

One class has Visitors. The parents have been informed, told, and Told. Heads brush when you're helping, so teacherly hair is brushed with conditioner of an evening, and combed through and through again with a small steel comb with tight tight tines.

Comb, wipe, clear. Comb, wipe, clear.
Comb, wipe, clear. Comb, wipe, clear.
Comb, wipe, clear. Comb, wipe, clear.
Comb, wipe, clear. Comb, wipe, clear.
Comb, wipe, wait. Speck, squint: glitter.

bad or good.

Zig went to bed usual time, unusual for the last week of school. A bit grey under the eyes after three trips to the loo. No book, lights straight off. Unusual.

Corrie on, fleecy blanky up to my neck, I settled into the sofa. Mol's pattern down the stairs:

Mum, what's that music?

I knew. I couldn't hear it, my ears are poor, but I knew.

I don't know, love. I can't hear anything.

It's loud upstairs. Hang on.

Mol's pattern up the stairs. Mol's pattern down the stairs.

It's that van thing, that float thing. It's coming down the Close, dead slowly, with loads of lights and stuff.

Just as I'd settled.

Awrugh. I've just settled. Zig's in bed.

It doesn't matter. Zig's in bed.

Mol's pattern up the stairs.

.

Mol's pattern down the stairs.

Mum, there are people coming to the doors with buckets.

Awrugh.

I'll do it mum.

Okay love, just get the pot out of the Schweppes jar.

The pot is got and brought. The knock's just before I sift half a hand of change into Mol's.

She disappeared into the hall and opened the door. I heard the man with the bucket ask if anyone would like to see Father Christmas.

No thanks.

Okay love, he said softly, thanks.

Thanks. Bye!

Back to me.

Did you not want to see Father Christmas, Mol?

Nah. And Zig's in bed

Big smile. Mol's pattern up the stairs.

I had a sudden gulletful of warm, reaching sadness. I wanted my girl to see Father Christmas. I wanted my boy to too.

Mol's pattern down the stairs.

He's not even fat! Father Christmas is not even fat!

I wait for my window-watcher's newly adolescent comment on men in suits.

He must be making room for all the mince pies.

A smile. Mol's splendid pattern up the stairs.

I'm shocked at my grief. Corrie is Eastenders now, the fleecy blanky is down to my ankles, with a cat atop. I can't seem to stop crying.

jesus

Stripping the shiny blown vinyl (magnolia) off the walls was a slow thing. The stripping bit was quick, we all joined in the strippage, giving the kids thick breast slices of job, I took a wing and nibbled the ribcage, Gareth working solidly at the parson's nose.

The job, as I said, was not a long one. The lengthy bit was the months of living in a shiny blown vinyl (magnolia) room before we got around to strippage. I think it was shock.

Where was I? There was a bit of a vague point to this. Oh yeah, the strippage? That was months ago: a summer job. We forgot to allocate sanding and painting to autumn. Which is why fabulous Who Deer Me Deer No Deer has had an open challenge issued by the wall:




and why the baby cheesus has a headache.




What do you think? Too much?

it's not fair

Mol has a friend round for a sleepover. Before teknoligee crossed the atlantic in 1998, it was called 'staying the night'. The shiny new term stipulates that at some period between the giggles of 2:53am and the grumps of 5:73am the two girls should, you know, sleep, instead of just, you know, stay, so it's a comer-in phrase I don't get so ferocious at.

Mol and friend were all cool at first, cool, slumped, and unimpressed on the sofa. During the evening they ran the levels from lip-curl to zombie/vampire-chase, embracing made-up-dance-to-show, decorate-the-tree, eat-lots-of-chocolate, and snort-cola-out-the-nose-during-You've-Been-Framed.

They are now upstairs, watching Mamma Mia. Again. The ups and downs of the nearly teens. I must grasp these moments, throttle the treasure right out of them. From March she'll be old enough to sign up for suicide bomber duty.

virtual reality

Snow again this morning. Cold again all day. Wind is wuthering away at the garage (wuther + garage = oh, 21st century, how I adore thee) door. Again.

Mol set off for next door but one, dressed appropriately in grass skirt, garland, headband, flower appliqued sleeveless top, and flip flops.

It says something to give a birthday party a hula theme twelve days before Christmas. What, am not quite decided, but something. A desire for contrast? A faith in your central heating and/or insulation? A derring doo ha HA and en garde to the Current Economic Climate? Mebbe just a daughter turning eleven who has asked for a luha?

Summink.

While my daughter confronted the elements with her fury of faux grass and faux flowers, I tucked my double-socked feet under a sleeping bag and ordered the shopping. Because, supermarkets in December? I can't be arsed. People say, I've heard them, they say oh yes! I do my food shop online because it stops all the impulse buys! You only buy what you need!

Do you bollocks.

The slight delivery man works shifts with himself to dump a fat elephant's weight in crap in my kitchen whenever I order online, his eyes an unspoken Missus, why did you buy this, this, or this? All this? Because. It. Wasn't. Real. It was a button I pressed, and then another, and then again, and again. The supermarket knows this about me. They know that while in their shop I might be a forensic expert of the aisle label smallprint, a honed cynic of a fighting machine who trigger fingers the oranges, but an emailed code for free delivery makes that finger trigger happy, repeat ricocheting off Add To Trolley into the beating heart of Place Order.

Right, says the slight delivery man, shaking out my receipt and his strained shoulders in a single, practised move, there's just the one substitution today. They were all out out Credit Crunch two-for-one, so they've popped some Doom Pie in instead. That okay, or shall I take it back?

That's okay. Thanks.

i acknowledge mine

I don't have a primary school staff fit. Am not possessed of a primary school staff head. I don't have primary school staff mouth. I growl along full fathoms below primary school carol pitch. The children might all burp, fart and mouth breathe because their noses are busy, busy with fingers, but is it on for the staff?

Take, for comparison's sake, A, a teaching assistant. Off Tuesday with her diabetic son as he needed a few hours stabilising in hospital after chucking up his dinner and chucking out anything like a reasonable blood sugar level; off yesterday chucking up herself. How does she appear after a day of stress, heart worry and National Health antihygiene, and another of nose vomit? As tall, as slender, as artfully, simply glam as ever is how.

How?

Does she have the morning's outfit, perfectly simple black top and trousers, elegant silk scarf for the neck, ready and hangered to pull from the wardrobe? Is it slung artlesslessly across a 1940s padded bedroom chair, to slip into at 6am, or could it be – oh, the injustice – that A has to riffle to the elbows through the laundry for something ANYTHING to struggle into, before a dash to round up the kids to the car to their three different schools then to work – on time – and still manages to look coutured?

And, the red, red cherry atop the perfectly iced, delicately spiced bun: she has the impudence to be a pleasant person with a strong wit, and capable of a filthy nose snort laugh that deserves respect.

Am not a bitter cherry here, because I too can pull from my wardrobe a choice of two outfits for every day, both of which reflect personality through image. Hmm ... today, shall we have the Gollum or the Caliban? Thing of Darkness 1, or Thing of Darkness 2? But of course, it's always both Things of Darkness; I know enough, at least, to layer.

spastic fantastic

If there is anything more novel than a nine-year-old with cerebral palsy scooting off ahead down the cul de sac to demonstrate the moves of his Friend Who Runs Weird (and who doesn't have C.P), I haven't seen it today.

Zig has been walking to and from school for, oh, two months - three? As well as building stamina and teaching Dog Poo 101, it allows for greater, um, freedom of expression than the chair. A passing driver, startled by seeing someone who moves differently and whose mum is looking right at her, presses her lips down into the familiar startled Isn't He Doing Well smile. Yes, he is, and he's also being a little sod. Does she realise, I wonder, that my wonky boy is wonkier because he's taking the piss out of his absent FWRW?

He does it all the time. The outward jerk of his arms as he lines up for assembly isn't so involuntarily – he's thinking about the size of the universe. Those unformed yodels that made the man in the Asda queue jump? He was the Undead.

But oh, the prize must go to his performance in one end of year play. He and his mates were just edging out of Year 3 and some genius had decided they would make perfect Von Trapp children. Their turn arrived, onto the church stage they clambered, Zig getting a hand up:

There's a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall
And the bells in the steeple too

Aww, look at them all, the audience sighed, aren't they lovely, those satin frocks, the bow ties, the shorts ...

And up in the nursery an absurd little bird,
Is popping out to say

... and isn't that disabled one doing well! Look at him trying so hard, those stiff legs, those clenched fists ...

Cuckoo.

The disabled one's mum peers through a one-finger gap, shoulders shaking, eyes running.

Cuckoo!

The disabled one's dad points his camera and wishes for video.

Cuckoo!

Those stiff legs? Those clenched fists?

He's being a fucking cyberman.

brace

Two by two, two by two, the animals board the coach.

The girls twitter, squawk and preen. The boys dead arm and competitive fart, misting the windows and striping the underpant.

A Leo Sun girl's index finger, faithful to her friend, writes Becky and Gemma Rule! The boys write bum. You can see Bolton through it.

Two by two, two by two, the animals enter the Octagon. They try to be orderly, two by two, but still, cats are suddenly herding beasts. Seats down, coats off, hoot at the buzzing school of brown and yellow that share the audience.

We watch a small space become a garage, a forest, a community, a victory. We join in. The only play in Greater Manchester where audience participation is pheasant beating. Stamp, clap, ululate.

we'll put it on in the barn

Knock Knock. Knock at the door.
Knock Knock. Is anyone there?
Knock Knock. Knock at the door.
We need a place to stay.

One snow day, a winter vomiting, and a half-attendance. Beautiful, blue, smile-eyed Mary has tonsilitis. We worry that it's a census too far: after two months of late pickups and one parental complete no-show, Mary won't come back to us even after the manger's restuffed with lambs and packed back in its attic space.

Three rooms left- all the other rooms are full
Three rooms left- sorry that is all.

Adults glazed, dazed with the stoned look of mild panic.

Two rooms left- all the other rooms are full
Two rooms left- sorry that is all!

Nightcap. Where's the nightcap? Who can run up a quick nightcap for the innkeeper?

One room left- all the other rooms are full
One room left- sorry that is all.

Looting kitchen cupboards for bacofoil, ravaging santa hats for pom poms.

No rooms left
There’s no room for you at all
No rooms left
We’re completely full

Fingers needle stubbled, the nightcap fits.

mummery.

Mum.

Mum.

Mum. I thought you said the two sides of the family should never, ever meet.

I did say that, Zig, yes.

Well, they've just met.

Ah, well, that was okay. We just got away with it. It was only a little meeting. It was quick, chance, and all smothered in this gungy layer of manners. We did well.

Still, somewhere something will have been knocked out of order. A puppy will have hurt its paw, or there will be strange weather, or something.

Oh. Kay.







Violence erupted as unholy creatures materialised in Ramsbottom today. Scientists are confounded.

herculean

I went shopping.
I went shopping in Manchester.
I went shopping in Manchester on a Saturday.
I went shopping in Manchester on a Saturday before Christmas.
I went shopping in Manchester on a Saturday before Christmas, with my sister.
I went shopping in Manchester on a Saturday before Christmas, with my sister. We went to Primark.

lo

In a tight, dark, hush crowded space a hiding seeking eight year old would pay good rolos for, it takes a bit of a wriggle to reach the shepherds.

Kings gleam, stars gleam, the angels' angles catch my knees.

Lambs flock the manger, stacked on pots for gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Teatowels, tinfoil, tinsel, glitter, card, sacking, satin, smocks, pots.

Camel heads, Buddha-lashed, not needed this year, are left asda-bagged and contemplative in the dark.

potbound

I brought the library plant back home for the summer holidays. The school library is a small, square room with no natural light. I put the pot on an upstairs windowsill that catches the morning sun.

September came, school began again, the plant stayed on an upstairs windowsill a road away from the small, square room with no natural light.

Gareth said the plant would have to have a name if it was to lodge here for the summer. Because of the small room with no natural light he put up Gollum. I said I couldn't do that to a small, struggling plant in a black, plastic pot. A dull, commentless plant no one would choose for a spot they loved. I said it had enough without that. I named the plant Precious.

In the new growing season I'll swap the black, plastic pot for something a bit fancier. Less black. Less plastic.

I leave Precious every day and go to sit, round-eyed, quietly hissing, muttering at the tricksy small people, flat-foot stomping around my small, square room with no natural light.

support

daughter: I got two housepoints in P.E today, and nobody else got anything!

mother: creep.