so that was Christmas was it?

...and it's over, thank goodness. It's not that I am against it or anything but I just never have the time to actually do it justice. I'd love to be able to titivate and do creative things with a holly branch and a few balls but it takes me all my time just to cut to the chase, grab a turkey, smack mince pies together and stuff decorations on a wobbling tree. Said tree fell over this year - was lying on the sofa like a overweight bejewelled harlot the morning after, so I shoved it on to the floor and said those immortal words of a stressed mother 'SOD IT!' But the aghast looks of the surrounding pack of males that dominate this hovel on the hillside made me pick the the blowsy bint up and stick her back on her perch in the window where she can beckon to the outside world each evening until 5 January.

So it eventually came to pass in a whirl of cooking, clearing away, more cooking, more clearing away. As I sat peeling the inevitable mountain of sprouts I thought of Woozle in a hospital bed in London, fighting so bravely - instead of a 'x' on each one this year we had a 'w' - bless her and her hubby Jimmy.

We left the house behind on Boxing Day and yomped through the woods to get some of that crisp cold fresh air - it was like the rush hour on every footpath and stile! The world and his wife were out in force taking the air. Meanwhile back at the ranch - more cooking and clearing add an ironing mountain and two bulging washing baskets and you get the picture......and this is Christmas....

A hospital trip in deep snow for the junior shepherd early one morning left him with his hair standing really on end without gel! Having his nether regions shaved into a mohican to match may just have put him off hair sculpture or ever - well we can but hope! One more trip and he should be sorted.

Before we knew it it was New Year's Eve and our first venture into a street party to welcome in the New Year. An added complication - about a foot of snow and solid ice all down the lane. Much cooking was being done in kitchens still jaded from Christmas - the last few weary mince pies struggled into a hot oven, were promptly forgotten only to emerge some hours later as missiles that could bring down aircraft on the Manchester - Europe flight path which passes over our houses.

The gathering point was a garage, the heating was a chiminea, the food was hilarious varying from Sri Lanka veg curry to ubiquitous cocktail sausage rolls, tiramisu and syrup sponge and custard, a collection of slo cookers held mulled wine and cider punch and what resembled fruit salad - 'bung it all in' seemed to be the way to go. As the adults, wrapped in more layers of thermals than woolly onions, nattered away in the garage the kids revelled in the freedom of playing in the snow and ice by the light of the full moon and they didn't seem to feel the cold at all. The chiminea waddled into the garage at one point but had to waddle out again because of the fumes from the smokeless fuel which gave us lot half an hour of hysteria as we made up headlines for the newspapers - 'Peculiar village cult exposed as whole street die in fume filled garage whilst children were left in the snow' etc etc

Games followed and apparently somewhere there is a photograph of yours truly running up the garage with a white balloon between my knees - no ..I don't want to see it thank you. With all the layers we collectively admitted to having donned, a game of Strip Jack Naked would have taken us well towards the Spring equinox.

As the witching hour arrived we all went out staggering on the ice - whether it was the ice or the effects of the mulled wine we shall never know. Just as we slid into a circle with all the kids with frozen wet gloves - yuk, Big Ben struck midnight on the radio, and a single Japenese lantern floated over the wooded hillside in the moonlight somebody whispered it was a soul on its way to heaven and I thought of Woozle and hoped that she was peaceful in London and not in pain. Fireworks lit the sky and cheers echoed up rom the valley - we sang a bit and kissed a lot and finished the mulled wine and the experienced party goers managed to keep going with a bottle of whisky and Sloe vodka until well after 3am.

Sadly Woozle passed away in London at 6;20pm on New Years Eve and a very special, very brave and funny lady will no longer leave comments below. Woozle was one of the first bloggers I actually met way back in 2007 and we have remained in contact ever since. It was Woozle who took the remains of my shocked chickens after the fox came to call. We planned a rendevouz on a car park in Leominster and spent a hilarious half hour with a carrier bag of beetroot that had been rolling round after a market - did we laugh! That's how I shall remember Woozle - laughing like a mad woman scrabbling under cars looking for stray beetroot whilst balancing a chicken crate on the roof of the car as our bemused husbands shook their heads in disbelief.

Winter

If I should be the first to go away

Out of the golden sunlight of our peace,

When the dear sacrement of common day

And lowly, love empurpled tasks shall cease;

When the old books beside the evening fire

neglected lie, and closed the garden gate,

And from our hill the blossom tinted shire

Gathers for us an air disconsolate -

Then, oh beloved! Hold me close, so close,

Nearer than thought of pain or sad regret;

So wrapped in you, I even should regret;

The lifelong dread of parting; and the rose

Of June would flower for me, though cold and slow

And weary on our roof-tree fell the snow.

Speak to me then with that most tender voice,

Wherein I hear the forest murmur fall,

The songs of the corn and velvet throated doves

That each on each with muted music call,

Minding each other of their leafy loves.

So gathered safe within your voice, your eyes,

Your dear protecting smile, I shall not know

When the black frost sets in, the dark wind cries.

For as the squirrel and the mole, so warm

Within their snow proof chambers, and the bee

Walled in with summer, wake not, through the storm

Beseigegs hive and forest - so with me

All will be well; for sealed in dreamless slumbers,

I shall not know my world is desolate,

Ages may pass, like leaves that no man numbers,

Whilst in the nest of love I hibernate.

From Spring Of Joy - Mary Webb