Weather in my head

‘Oh, the weather outside is dull and overcast
But the fire is not needed because it’s so mild
And since we’ve no place to go apart from the pub
Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain.’

The imagery isn’t quite as powerful as ‘Let it snow, let it snow, let is snow’ but that’s Christmas in Bristol for you. And you know what? The only weather that matters today is the weather in my head and today the sun is shining.

Ours is not a Christmas bathed in religious superstition, it’s all about family, about being with the people you love. Not all the people we love are with us today – I have much loved family in Canada and we’re following our own rules, not Boris Johnson’s, to keep our older family members safe – but I can honestly say there’s nowhere on Earth I’d rather be. Not even somewhere hot and sunny where drinks are free. Like Club Tropicana, for example.

Perhaps it’s an age thing. We still do exactly the same thing on Christmas morning with our two grown-up (well, in years anyway) sons join us in our bedroom to see what Santa has brought us. The only difference these days is instead of them bounding in at 5.30am they stagger in nearer 10.00am having over-imbibed on Christmas spirit the night before.

Zoom, which was dead handy when things were rotten last year, is nothing like the real thing. You can’t hug, you can’t kiss, you can’t even shake hands with anyone. We’re regularly lateral flowed and we keep as safe as we can, but sod it: the damage to people’s mental health by locking down is almost as bad as the damage to people’s physical health caused by Covid.

We’ve had coffee, exchanged presents, sunk a bottle of Champagne and scoffed our way through trendy cinnamon swirls and croissants (whatever happened to bacon sarnies?) and all is well in the world. Even my Man Flu has improved dramatically and, for the first time since I can’t remember, I slept without dreadful anxiety dreams. The spirit of Christmas or A New Day? Who knows? I’ll take anything I can get. Either way, it brings new meaning to the words of the great bard, Roy Wood, who declared ‘I Wish I Could Be Christmas Everyday’. If it makes me feel like this, hang the expense: I’ll take it.