Christmas Over Here

Hodee-hodee-ho! Happy holidays to all of you. I wish you all the peace and blessings in the world. I hope you're all as excited about this season as I am. 

Maybe this is as good a time as any to tell you about my life on the right side of the ocean and the wrong side of the road. Let me start by saying that my existence is about as perfect as it could be. We live in a tiny village in a tiny town in the south of England.

Dorset has the finest weather in the UK. That's a lot like saying that Morvan was the best singer in Milli Vanilli. When I heard that it was frequently windy, I thought that maybe I could fly the occasional kite. Turns out that windy in England is like pudding or chips or egg nog. Familiar word, entirely different meaning. Let me just say that within an hour of assembling a wooden storage shed in the back garden, we watched out the back door as it sailed across the property. Those scenes on cable TV where the valiant weatherman stands, battered by winds and rain, in a hurricane scene in Florida- that's just waiting for the bus to Weymouth on a Tuesday morning here. Wind means WIND.

To say that life is quiet here doesn't do it justice. We usually walk into town. If we have to drive- well, if Kate has to drive, I'm not crazy- parking is free. Of course, there's nothing in town. Mostly a few charity shops. Thrift shops to most of you. There are a few cafes, the watch strap shop, the vape shop and the wool shop. We like to play a game to see if we can ever find it open. There's the local pub, the Punch Bowl. Main feature is the patch of astro-turf in front. There are cat mummies in the local museum. If company comes, there's the lighthouse and the hole.

Oh, we have plenty to do. Amos and Andy dvds. Rocks and broken glass that we pick up at the beach. We usually manage more than three meals on any given day, too. We spend a lot of our free time lavishing praise on Vera and I'm pretty sure she likes it.

You want to know how perfect Kate is for me? This morning she came down in a gold and silver sequinned dress.

"I bought this for a pound at a charity shop a long time ago. I get it out and wear it once a year at Christmas and I wonder, 'Why do I ever wear anything else?' "

Why, indeed!

Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.