The Christmas Express

To add to the general chaos of Christmas Day lunch for 11, William's new model train set was installed on the table before the pudding - useful for conveying the nuts round.

The Christmas Outing

One of Birmingham's favourite sons, John Baskerville (1706 – 1775) is commemorated in the city's Centenary Square by David Patten's Portland stone sculpture of the Baskerville typeface, Industry and Genius (1990). It makes a great climbing frame.

Eight of us were on our way from New Street Station to see The BFG at the Rep, via The National Sea Life Centre, taking in lunch at Ed's Easy Diner en route.

Tower of bauble

It's good when grandchildren can take over the decoration of the Christmas tree.

Stir up Sunday

All three grandchildren were with us yesterday, stirring the Christmas cake in turn.

Ate, drank and were merry

Eleven of us sat down for Christmas dinner yesterday: usually, it's lunch, but we had no grandchildren with us (till today), so why not? We sang carols afterwards, James playing the piano. Well, some of us sang anyway - sadly not all believe in that sort of thing.

Christmas walk

Like last year, but along a slightly different trajectory, we looked over the curve of Coldwell Bottom during the course of our Christmas walk. The six of us parked at Pinkham on a beautiful morning, three walking all the way home.

This was after a lateish breakfast: we had been to Midnight Mass - the two of us, plus all four of our (normally non-church-going) children, two with appendages. The experience gave rise to much discussion.

Unlike the Queen's Speech at 3 p.m. We all listened, but some with less than the fullest attention. A pity, as it was good.

PS Lawrence Freeman OSB wrote as follows in The Tablet later:

The Queen knows where she belongs. When she spoke her Christmas message, it resonated from more than a geographical place. It touched the soul of a people she had served for 60 years. She had seen great changes – “many of them for the better”, as she said. She was looking backwards… but… she also looked forwards, not predicting what would come but with a hope born of a personal vision not of statistics or planning. Not many monarchs or other leaders have spoken recently from such a place of faith, rooted in such a defined cultural and geographical identity... It was not a sermon. Perhaps she has heard enough of those. It was more like a teaching, carrying an authority that rested on its ability to clarify and advise without any feeling of imposition. 

His disciples once asked a desert father on his deathbed how they should live. He replied that he had always made up his mind, whenever he had asked any of them to do something, not to be angry if they did not do it. “And so we have always lived in peace.” The Queen’s rather similarly toned message to the people she has served was wrapped in the reflections of a grandmother, the head of the Commonwealth and of the armed forces. We saw a baby being photographed, sportsmen running and soldiers in action. But between these images was the real message – to take time to pause and regain the “balance between action and reflection” that the intense distractedness of our culture has lost us. Temporary retreat from the world allows us to understand the world better, and the essential values of family, friendships and good neighbourliness come back into focus. 

The generic, safely non-religious, word for this in a secular society is the rather neutral “reflection”. The Queen used this, but drew from an older and richer vocabulary too when she spoke of “contemplation, prayer and meditation”. Reflection, she said, did not mean only looking back. Whoever takes time to pause in the midst of activity, to be still in these moments of contemplation, may discover “surprising results”. 

In the light of the Christian mystical tradition, this is, of course, a very English understatement. But who is better able to deliver a powerful message with such a throwaway, inoffensive line? What lay behind it, however, was wrapped in the talk of the new baby who had been inducted into a “joyful faith of duty and service”. The teaching ended in an explicit link between the need for this space for prayer in modern life and the love of God, which we find there and in which we grow. And without blinking, she reminded us of the staggering truth that nothing is beyond the reach of this love. 

It is rare in our culture for a sincere statement of such clarity and depth to be made at all, and especially rare for it to be made so convincingly.

Over presented?

Thomas, back from Lisbon for a week, has climbed the step ladder to put the star on top of the Christmas tree, which Caroline fetched from Winstone on Thursday last.

We shall be eleven for dinner tomorrow. Nevertheless, when you look at the number of presents already under the tree, you might think we were expecting twice that number. I seem to say this every year. Decades ago, Sarah invited a Polish teacher, Barbara to spend Christmas with us at our family home, the Coach House, Arrow. Upon being asked to sum up her impressions of the day, she volunteered: "I think you are over presented."

Move over Claud

After 19 years, I felt it was time Caroline had a new bike (for Christmas). But you can see from the look on her face that she is a little distrustful about switching from her faithful Claud Butler to this Trek: still, Matthew having adjusted the height appropriately, she rode it home in convoy with me (on my Trek), and the two now nestle side by side in our shed.

I toyed with the idea of an electric bike, which she had mentioned with a slight air of longing; but rejected it. They are (a) heavy, (b) expensive and (c) geriatric - particularly as most of our miles are biked around Cheltenham on the (virtual) flat.

Party time

On the strength of the photographs I took at the recent tree planting at Well Close, I was asked to bring my camera along to Phoenix, 86-90 Winchcombe Street in our town centre for the St George's and St Vincent's Christmas party this afternoon.

Here were 80 or so people of all ages and all sorts of impaired ability: hardly any of them could talk, and most were unable to feed themselves. But they were given a great time, and clearly enjoyed themselves without inhibition. To be there felt like a privilege.

I was a little daunted by the commission, not having been to Phoenix before - and not knowing the range of people who would be present. So I was relieved to hear from the Manager after I had sent her the photographs, that "just looking at these is so moving: you have captured the essence of our work and the personalities of the people in the pictures."

Don't get me started on...

...people who include pets as "signatories" on their Christmas cards. The Season of Goodwill is stressed and strained enough as it is without extra provocation.

The ox and ass know their place in a Nativity scene, but a pony in Verdi's Falstaff? Well, at the outset of Act III, one puts in an appearance in Robert Carsen's syndicated production. It was relayed from The Met. to us amongst others - not that many, surprisingly - in our local Cineworld on Saturday evening. A riotously enjoyable evening it was too, discounting a few excesses (in addition to the pony): these so easily take attention away from a score that describes the action more than sufficiently. So, the wonderful orchestral accompaniment to "Mondo ladro" etc. was lost by my efforts to discern where Falstaff had ended up when he should have been "seated on a bench beside the door of the Garter Inn" (according to the stage directions).

As suggested in the interval discussion, Falstaff is a giant standing on the shoulders of others - Figaro and Meistersinger, but also Rosenkavalier. And something of the humanity, the stillness of a very great work needs bringing out, that was just a little lacking on Saturday. Nevertheless, for the first time in a while at these relays, I felt an urge to clap at the end.

This made me reflect again on a weird genre: the audience in New York is enjoying a live performance, but though we are watching it real-time, we might as well not be. It could be the Oscars on telly at home. I guess that's why I prefer the relative anonymity of Screen 4 (possibly Cineworld's largest auditorium) to the chi-chi of the more exclusive Screening Rooms downstairs. There you are in a full house, waited on with wine and nibbles while you wallow in leather seating alongside other regulars.

I discussed this over wine and (somewhat more than) nibbles with Robert Padgett, Chairman of the Cheltenham Opera Society, at lunchtime on Sunday. What was the effect of all these relays, I wondered, upon the audience for the actual performances (in New York, London, Glyndebourne, Stratford etc.); and upon the audience for less prestigious productions in the same towns/cities as had the relays?

Not much photography lately: so here instead is an image taken when out walking on an icy lane this time last year - it was a good few degrees colder then.

Twelfth Night

We visited Mini and Leo today, for coffee, and took their Christmas tree back to its resting place in our garden. They bought a living tree 13 months ago, when it was even smaller than it is now: it survived the heat of their flat last Christmas, and looks as if it is still alive after this one. So long as we remember to water it, there's no reason why it should not be good for quite a few more years, until it's too big to move around.

Christmas walk

The rain having lifted, we had a perfect Christmas morning walk, parking above Coberley, and completing the Woodland Trust (Barber Wood) triangle clockwise. Not much mud to speak of, though plenty of other walkers. (Coldwell Bottom is to the right of the photograph.)

The icing on the cake

Fresh from his singing success, Edmund turned his practised hand to icing the cake, made more than 12 months ago, but never needed last Christmas. It's good to have the boys here for the festivities! We shall be 13 for lunch tomorrow.

Farewell old friend

My mother used to enjoy sitting in this chair, beside her fireplace at Arrow. We inherited it (the chair), but I sense that Caroline was never that keen on it. Anyway, it's long been in need of repair. Happily, we have lots of other places to sit, so while making room for this year's Christmas tree we decided it had to go. It has now made a freecycler very happy (she said): many others were queuing up behind her.

Crib craft

Caroline and Mini have been making some more jumbo crib figures in the kitchen today. In my usual way, I have been urging against their instalation before Christmas Eve, but suspect this traditionalist viewpoint will not prevail. Meanwhile, it's too wet to do much outside, even though the temperature is no deterrent. There's water everywhere. Is November the most depressing month of my year? The other candidate is February, but at least it's a short month, and the days are getting a little longer as it goes on.

"The Christian Christs"

My friend Christopher Page came up with this apothegm over lunch today. Something - a mantra - for me to take with me on my walk, next week. It's equivalent, he offered, to those seemingly tautologous words, "The just man justices," in Hopkins' beautiful sonnet, As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame.

After lunch, I went shopping for some waterproof gaiters. The first packet I took down turned out to have only one inside it. "Take another," the cheerful assistant urged. I did, but when I got it home, I found it had three gaiters inside.

This lovely image (16th Century glass, as I recall), I found at Sudeley yesterday: amongst other quirks, one of two angels, kneeling behind the crib, seems to be wearing a pork pie hat.

Gold etc.

This weekend, we celebrate Epiphany. Our crib has been enhanced, by the coming of one of the Kings, an albino (or is it just grey hair?), bearing a gold ball. He's the product of the Caroline and Mini papier-mâché production line, which is gradually assembling a complete set of Nativity figures. Joseph and a second sheep are also 2011 additions to the ensemble on our hall table - much admired by visitors, but now to be put away in the attic.

At church itself, we have a collection of any old bits of gold today, to be sold in aid of the St Thomas More parish hall refurbishment fund.

carpetman

Agnes and Edmund combined to buy Caroline a carpet for Christmas, for Agnes' old room at the top of the house, which is now - as a result - a cosy office for her. Rob Smith (who's been to us before, though I didn't remember his face) came to do the laying, and - obligingly - to tidy up our carpetting generally, especially the thresholds - and the wine-soaked landing: we hadn't had anyone round since the plumbers took all the floorboards up this time last year.

"No robin, no Santa"

There's a lull in proceedings following lunch for 15 here. So, here's the cover of my latest Blurb book, a copy having been given to Caroline this morning. Its brief introduction reads:

"My father, who was in the paper business, produced his own family Christmas cards some years. This sowed a seed, which started to bear fruit in 1992: it was then that I first contacted The Thought Factory in Leicester, with a view to their printing a card which made use of one of my photographs: they have continued to print cards for me every year since. This book brings together the collection (to date), along with subject descriptions, and a little background information on how each photograph came to be taken.

In concentrating on its religious significance, I feel, like Mrs. Partington with her mop, that I may have done rather little to arrest the process by which Christmas has become increasingly secularised. And anyway, you may ask, who wants a glossy throwaway card at a time when trees need saving and a second class stamp costs 36p? Well, now here’s a glossy book to compound my sin."

Happy Christmas all!

Contrapuntal carols

Our parish carol service - held yesterday evening - attracted an enormous crowd! The church glowed in the candlelight. The choir excelled itself, which was just as well as the congregational singing - in traditional English Catholic style - barely exceeded forte. Fr. Bosco, succinctly distinguishing the Nativity from the incarnation, gave one of his uniformly good sermons.

It all contrasted nicely with the evening before: unlike last night, the champagne flowed, and our generous South Gloucestershire friends' Christmas party may serve as their sole involvement with the Nativity narrative for some of the regular suspects rounded up on this invariably jolly occasion. Having two pianos perhaps made the backsliders sing up a bit more willingly than usual. Florence, a precocious nine-year-old, led off Once in royal... Our host as ever took the part of Wenceslas. One half of the assembly sang The First Nowell against the other's Holly and the ivy.

Oh, and for We three kings, I was promoted from second to first this year!