christmas at the chateau

The perfect day.

Lovely sheen of frost over everything.

As far as I'm concerned that's a white Christmas.

Spent the morning following a robin around the garden trying to get a picture.

Rather pleased with the result.

Afternoon zipped into Naas for coffee at the Costa Cafe.

I was nearly there when I realised MC Hamster was still snuggling up my sleeve.

I decided to chance going into the cafe anyway.

Life is too short to worry about health regulations.

It seemed possible that if the staff saw Hammy, I would be thrown out.

They might think she was a rat.

Or just a hamster.

Onward.

I was sitting ensconced in the corner with a ham and cheese panini and a caffe latte, when Hammy's head emerged from my sleeve.

She likes paninis.

And ham.

And cheese.

I pushed her head back in.

There followed an hour of pantomime with Hammy's head appearing out of various sleeves, and at my neck, and just for divilment from a hole in the jumper near my waist.

Occasionally I slipped her a piece of panini, or a piece of ham, or a piece of cheese, and she would retire to consume it, before reappearing moments later.

Between times my eyes scanned the cafe warily.

I could see an elderly lady sitting opposite me.

I had no wish to cause her a heart attack.

Three teenage boots girls were on my left.

They'd have definitely had great larks if they caught sight of the golden mouse.

And some little kiddies were perched on high stools at the windows.

Hammy would have been vintage entertainment for them too.

But I managed to keep her in check.

Drunk with success I marched up to the counter.

Hammy was immobile, resting on my spare tyre.

That is to say, resting on a comfortable fold in my belly.

I ordered another caffe latte and began to chat to the Hungarian waitress.

"Lovely weather for this time of..." I was saying.

At this point Hammy, the hamster who never bites, sank her teeth into my spare tyre.

I said: "Aiiieee... year, I always like it when it's not raining."

Miss Hungary eyed me strangely.

The rest of our transaction was processed in silence.

Back to the chateau.

Our neighbour Cathy Anne had dropped in with her daughter Katie to see the Mammy before Christmas.

I showed them the budgies.

The green budgie came out of the cage and conversed politely with everyone.

The blue budgie refused to budge.

Bluey still has a canniptian if anyone tries to handle her.

She doesn't mind being fed but after that she has no desire whatsoever for human contact.

My cousin Frances ducked in as night was falling.

She's the teacher who can kill a charging yob at fifty paces with a blow of her tongue.

"I loved what you wrote on your blog about Doctor Barn's Christmas present," quoth she.

A woman of taste and discernment is our Frances.

Just don't run at her.

Time for a quick spruce up of the Heelers bod.

Shower.

Shave.

Teeth brushed.

The confessional style!

Do you like it gentle reader?

And I'm lying about the shower and the shave.

Life is too short.

Then up to Kilcullen Church for midnight mass.

Midnight mass in my town is at 9pm.

Very Irish.

The noble Heelers is doing his holy Joe routine in a forward pew where everyone can see him.

The choir are tootling away infernally from an elevated gallery at the rear of the church.

Heelers turns to look at the scene.

I always do this.

I love looking at the choir.

The choir singers are rosy cheeked and cheerful.

They are like Dickens characters.

The faces of the congregation are like a living history of my town.

Every year I drink it all in.

This year is a little different.

The fantasy has been spoiled for me a little by a rumour that there is dissension in the ranks of singers.

Some of the choir singers are not so fond of other choir singers.

I in my innocence had believed a choir could not be prone to such divisions.

So I am looking at them tonight and thinking rather rumly:

"Wouldn't it be funny if they sang Abide With Me when they can barely abide each other!"

After mass I linger in the church to chat with some fans.

You know.

Saint Therese, Saint Peter, Saint Paul. Saint Gemma Galgani, Pope John Paul The Great, Saint Father Slavko.

The usual bunch.

Fans indeed.

They loved my humour column in the Leinster Leader but haven't bought it since I got fired.

Arf, arf.

I am the last to leave the church.

In the car park I find my Uncle Jim and Aunty Pat standing shivering beside their Jaguar XJ8.

The doors are frozen shut.

I unlock my car and start the engine.

Aunty Pat lets out a cry.

"Look," she says to her husband. "James's car is better than yours."

Uncle Jim does not appear even faintly amused.

I haven't seen such a glower since...

Well, not since Doctor Barn's BMW conked out when its engine flooded in a puddle in the heavy rain last November, and then the next night I was driving him home, and we hit deep water on the road at the Curragh, and I said "Sorry Barn we're already in it," and he said "The same thing is going to happen to yours as happened to mine," but my car just rolled through the water and came out the other side still running and ready for more.

Ah yes.

You can't beat the 1998 Nissan.

It's the little car that could.

Sure it's virtually a classic car at this stage.

Back to the present.

Wind and moon and stars above the carpark at Kilcullen church.

I waited to see if the relatives would be able get into their Jag. I offered to try breathing on the locks to warm them up. Uncle Jim, because he knows me, was of the opinion that if I breathed on his car, I might break it. Instead he heated his key with a lighter and inserted it in the lock. It worked.

Who would have thunk it.

No one was more surprised than me.

I thought he was going to melt the key and make the thing completely inoperable.

You should have seen the fascinated look on my face as I watched him do it.

Back at the Chateau de Healy, my Yogic sister Marie and her husband Edward were rustling up a fry.

Rashers, eggs and sausages.

Now this is what Christmas is all about.

As we munched, I brought up the subject of Medjugorje, the town in Bosnia where there have been claims of divine apparitions.

"You were there Marie," I said. "Did you see anything?"

Her husband fielded the question.

"She saw a vision," he chortled. "A voice from heaven told her: You must play lots of golf. Follow the little white ball. And if you get tired, start playing Bridge."

So folks it looks like the visions at Medjugorje are genuine after all.

It would explain at a lot.

Before they departed Marie slipped me fifty quid.

I was speechless.

A fry and fifty quid in the one night.

Her finest hour.

And I hadn't even gotten her a Christmas present.

I hurried down to my room, grabbed an unwanted present someone had given me, a book actually, and scribbled on the inside cover: "Happy Christmas Marie and Edward, and thank you for the fifty. Ho, ho, ho, James."

Bunged the book into a Newbridge Silverware bag.

Presented it to the Yogic sister at the front door.

It was a moving moment as she read the inscription.

What Christmas is all about really.