There's a fire on Christmas Eve! Evacuate. Memories of a Childhood Christmas.

Although I grew up in London, my childhood Christmases were usually spent at our house in Berkshire. The house was on a farm, which we rented from a local landowner and in the winter there were cows mooching around in shit in a depressing pen. In the summer, we would play under the weeping willow tree in the garden and always, without fail, whatever the season, we would act out Cinderella and make the adults watch it over and over again. My friend Pandora would be Cinderella and I would be the handsome Prince. I didn't mind the role, in fact I was a tomboy and enjoyed it. My only downfall was once being asked to be the 'stick' in a dramatisation of Pooh-sticks.

My grandmother (who usually joined us at Christmas) was like a fairy godmother from a children’s story; we all loved her because she was able to do magic. We would choose somewhere to find a little trinket, then she would shut her eyes and say some weird and wonderful words and miraculously we would run off to our chosen site and the prize would be there  (I still don’t know how she did it)

On Christmas Eve, we would leave milk for the reindeers and a glass of whisky and some biscuits for Father Christmas in front of the fire. The next day we woke extremely early of course, to delve into our stockings. There are lots of Christmas Day photographs of me looking shattered, with huge grey bags under my eyes.  In one set of photos, aged about seven, I look particularly haggard, like a tiny junkie. That year, the  grownups had forgotten to put the fireguard in front of the fire as they staggered to bed on Christmas Eve, and the embers must gone awry, because in the middle of the night, my slightly ditzy aunt woke up my grandmother and said she smelt smoke. 

We were woken up by the adults and evacuated outside and told to look up to the sky to see if we could see Father Christmas arriving. It was thrilling and exciting to be outside in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. The fire turned out to be manageable, no fire engines arrived and we all went back to bed.

The next day, Christmas carried on as usual, the only reminder of what had happened the night before was the singed fire surround. We pulled crackers, opened presents,  told terrible jokes, dug out silver trinkets from the Christmas pudding, put on silly hats, watched television, played with our new presents and then felt depressed when it all came to an end.

When I think about Christmas,  I still think about escaping somehow, getting out of the city, and away from real life. Certainly in London, there is far too much traffic over the festive period. London feels blocked and overwhelmed, exactly like I feel. Thank God for online shopping. Christmas is like a fiction anyway, an overblown day of abundance: too much food, too many presents, too many good choices on TV, too many hours being in the company of certain members of our families  whom we never see the rest of the year, There is a sudden visit to Church, a flurry of carols and hopefully some reflection. I'd like to think Christmas was about giving, sharing, forgiving, reflecting and reunions as well as presents, parties and champagne.

I like the idea of being away in a cottage with a roaring fire and a windswept beach.  There would be endless games of scrabble, a few good carols, a short walk into the garden to collect some logs, a long walk along a beach to good pub. Yes bring me a country Christmas every time or failing that a Caribbean or a mountain Christmas will do.

On a Snowy hill that looked like a scene from Narnia, I crashed into a Tree!

On Christmas Eve we went tobogoning (still can't spell that word) and I crashed into a tree with a huge thud on my right thigh. I lay there for a moment, unable to get up and wondering if if was broken. I broke it once before aged 16 in a car crash. I hobbled back to my room and went to bed with a painkiller. But when it was time to get up, I couldn't walk.  It's hard to describe pain, but when I accidently knocked the top of my thigh the agony was unbearable and shards of pain went shooting through me. I began to cry and my 9 year old son who was with me, burst into tears.  I sat on a chair, unable to move forward or back. An ambulance was called and the drivers gave me gas and air which momentarily dulled the pain but not enough to get up from the chair. After two hefty doses of morphine,  they managed to carry me to the ambulance, while I tried not to throw up. The nurses were in festive mood, covered in toy antlers and coiled with glitter. Thankfully nothing broken but a huge hematoma (like internal bruising) and three weeks later, I'm still limping. It hurts at night and some nights more than others. It hurts in the day and going downstairs. In fact now both knees hurt going downstairs. The whole incident makes me feel so old. I was just trying to have fun with the children, but am too heavy and not lithe enough.

Today my lovely friend STAR gave me acupuncture and tomorrow will have a bit of physio, got to remember to be pleased that my femur isn't broken again. Last time was in hospital for three months!