If any of my secret admirers have an extra seven grand laying around and would like to bestow it upon the object of their affection, please feel free to do so in the following manner: The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection: More than 1000 of the Greatest Classics.

Cheers,

Buffy

“No, you do not have thousands of years to live. Urgency is on you. While you live, while you can, become good.” – Marcus Aurelius

Everyone around me is sick. I’ve been saying little prayers all week that my house be spared, but earlier tonight The Euro started breaking out in cold sweats. We were at a beautiful winter wedding full of candle light and some serious smoked salmon when I had to sit him down and actually ask: “Shall I wipe your brow?” Because, daft or not, that’s how we speak to each other.

I brought him home. Offered him some hot tea and paracetamol, which he refused – he doesn’t trust OTCs – and left him laying limp and feverish on the sofa trying his best to shoot some sort of alien with one eye closed and a temperature of 101.

I slept fifteen hours straight yesterday. STRAIGHT. And I can’t sleep tonight. I’ve just filled a hot bath with Elemis. I’ll be drinking the rest of the red and reading from the meditations of Marcus Aurelius – a Christmas gift from The Euro – properly titled “To Himself” – until I feel like hitting the hay. Reading does relax.

I can count the people who’ve seen me cry on half a hand. I joke that I’m emotionally stunted. And that’s the joke…that it’s not one. It’s something I’m working on. An ‘In Progress’ type thing. On Christmas Eve I sat runny nosed and shamefaced, for no real reason, as I opened the presents from the Girls.

Hemingway’s words (caption above) were engraved on this year’s pressie from Mal. Steph’s gift was a mint condition, leather bound, early edition novel by Mark Twain. You have to know me pretty well to come up with this combination. And you have to pretty much BE me to add Strawberry Shortcake (the doll, not the dessert) to the mix.

Sweet does not begin to describe it…

My mother is all about kitschy Christmas. She can’t help herself. Everything is red and green and mechanical with puffballs and candy canes and Santa Claus. I have a fabulous pair of elf socks, and this lovely trucker hat (of a sort) to prove it.

Speaking of the mother…we always take photos of her Yorkie and Not-Quite-Corgi for her Christmas cards. This year we’re a little behind. But at least my fingers haven’t suffered from the annual gnawing. (Above Photo from ’06.)

If you live in Cheshire, or anywhere thereabouts, then Delemere Forrest is really the only place you should be getting your trees. The whole thing becomes a festive event. Like the opening scene from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Trekking out to the almost-middle-of-nowhere. Hiking it from there. Except, of course, it’s so much prettier. Because your drive is through the English countryside. Full of cottages with names instead of street numbers and timbered frames and real wood fires.

Unfortunately, we had to forgo the ritual this year. The tree above came from an old timer by the name of John. Who grows the yuletide bushes in a part of Appalachia that’s not my own, then hauls them down to sell in a commercial lot that once belonged to Harris Teeter. It’s not the first tree I’ve bought from the fellow. And It probably wont be the last. He’s good people, that John. With a story to go with everything.

I like him. And his trees.

Cousin Bedford tried to kill himself today.

My grandfather says it best. “That Bedford is the most bone idle person alive”.

My grandmother clucks and shakes her head real pitiful like and says she reckons it’s brain damage caused by a shovel and he can’t help it. “You know what the Bible says. The Bible says we take care of those who can’t take care of themselves.”

A few years ago someone told Bedford the government would do just that. Take care of him. “They’ll give you stamps to eat on and a check to buy weed with.”

That came nearer to moving him than anything ever did. So near, in fact, he actually went and bathed and thought about signing up. Then he thought about it some more, and about how it would probably involve sitting in an office somewhere and not being stoned. And maybe even writing and talking with his eyes open. That’s when he decided the whole thing was too much work. That’s when he went out and found a woman who’d do it for him.

Her name was Suri and someone had told her “The more babies you have, the more money they’ll give you.” So she was out looking for a man to have them with when she ran into Cousin Bedford sitting on a park bench, holding a joint, and thinking about looking for someone like her.

Of course if Bedford had known then, what he knew now, he may not have ended up in front of that train this morning.

Then again, knowing Bedford, it probably wouldn’t have changed a thing.

“Of all the Charlie Brown’s in the world, you’re the Charlie Browniest.”

I’ve been listening to Vince Guaraldi all week long. There’s something wonderfully calming about all the lovely colours in old hand drawn cartoons.

Charlie Brown’s Christmas.

“One must never lie. Art has this great specification: it simply does not tolerate falsehood. One can lie in love, politics, and medicine: and can mislead the public or even God; but there is absolutely no lying in art.”

- Anton Chekhov

“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.”

- John Burroughs