Back to Somerset today for Christmas with my dull family and other animals. I am only joking; only 60% of my family are dull, but I will leave them guessing as to which of them are tedious and which are OK.
I went down "The Lamb" in Axbridge (a pub, not an underage Somersetshire sexual partner) to meet a few schoolfriends. I was driven there by my 18 year old niece, which was already a generation-shock. How did I go almost directly from being driven around by my parents to being driven around by the next generation (if they ever make a sci-fi programme about my clan then that is what they will call the later series about the exploits of the youngsters).
One of the people I was drinking with was Paula, who was in my class at Primary School. I realised with a jolt that I have known her for 29 years. It seems weird to be able to discuss things that happened thre decades ago. Coming home always seems to force me to acknowledge the passing of time. We talked about one girl who weed herself in class when she was sitting next to me. Although this is an incident from all that time ago it is still the primary thing that me and Paula remember about her. Even though the girl is pushing 40 now, to me she'll always be the girl who weed herself, sitting next to me.
My old mum and dad are now approaching their 70s and to all intents and purposes senile and housebound. Sometimes a flicker of recognition seems to pass across their wrinkled faces when I come into the room, but they are soon away with the fairies again. It is a tragedy to see them both so afflicted by their age and so utterly useless to everyone (though mum will be putting together the entire Christmas dinner tomorrow - she must manage to do it by some engrained memory or other and find the strength to carry it all to the table and wash up afterwards because of her strong love of tradition and religion, but otherwise she is naught but a husk, a useless shell, if you will)Yet, I remember my dad being the same age as I am now, 37 and look at him now, a dribbling fool locked in the attic for fear of what he might do to the local witches (the fear is he may let them live - he has gone soft with his senility). It doesn't seem long since he was as young as me, which means that it won't be long before I am as old as him and me and Paula will be discussing events from 6 decades before. And by then we'll both be weeing ourselves again, so maybe we'll pass over our classmates misfortune.
Life is short. Thank God for that at least.
Happy Christmas everyone, especially to my mum and dad, who put up with my hilarious little jokes with such minimal fuss.
