It's Christmas Eve, so I say it again - Merry Christmas!!
And where are we? You may well ask! After loading up our camels (my old Honda and Gareth's Renault) we trekked across the hills of Gower, the only high point being the not-very-high-above-sea level hill that is Cefn Bryn, to our Christmas hovel. Gareth was so looking forward to it. Mumbles is really not his scene and the Bryn beckoned him with its muddy paths, dead bracken and spiky shrubs for the dogs to get entangled in. Each to their own, eh? The cottage sits on the south side of the Bryn looking out across the fields and the village of Reynoldston to the sea beyond; that's when it's not shrouded in a drizzly mist, of course. Its address is Belvedere, Applegrove; a curious name, I thought. Certainly “Applegrove”now refers to the estate of smart 60’s build homes rather than my picture of a field of apple trees thriving on the sometimes-sunny, temperate slopes of Gower. And the name Belvedere…..I'm thinking that it might be a connection with the Norman lordships of Gower; days long ago when the English (yes, you know who you are) were given bits of Gower as thanks for their support of the Norman kings (“bloody foreigners, coming over ‘ere” ref Stewart Lee)
We parked on the soggy grass driveway where someone had clearly bogged in before us and squished into the cottage ferrying our bags and boxes and fought the hounds to keep muddy paws from inside. It's an old house, for sure, but cosy in an old fashioned and energy INEFFICIENT way! The antiquated heating system was blasting to welcome us and was working hard to dry out the dampness that comes with our Airbnb package. The smell of age is strong - earthy mortar and old plaster infused with the smells of many lives lived here. The owner, who called by to check that all is ok (he must know that some things here are definitely not ok) told us that the house is 600 years old! I can believe it, from the smell, and the decor isn't much younger than that either!
Nevertheless, it's another change of scenery and thereby a novelty. We have a log burner which is very seasonal and I have brought in our fibre-optic Christmas tree and some coloured lights, so we're good to go.
Our first night followed our usual pattern. Gareth, with his bad hip, like Goldilocks tried every bed to find one that he was comfortable in (it’s Gareth who has the bad hip…I don't think it featured in the Goldilocks story). He failed, so yesterday we took a trip to the caravan to drag out our memory foam mattress topper. That first night for me was feeling my heat being sucked into the cold damp stone walls, and I vowed not to sleep in that room again. The following morning, Gareth, not a man given to fanciful imaginings (ever the rationalist in fact) reported that events in the night suggested we may have ghosts for company. I'm not sleeping anywhere now other than with him in whichever bed he chooses! So last night we shared the memory foam in the bedroom with fewer external stone walls to steal us of our body heat and after a while of keeping my eyes firmly shut for fear of spectral visits (ghosts of Christmas Past?) I fell into a dream state in which Gareth decided to do a charity walking marathon.
While I sit here writing this, Gareth is singing Christmas jingles in the kitchen. A cheerful sound and one I love, since he has a lovely singing voice, rarely exercised, except on occasions such as this when he has his turkey cooking and a cupboard full of food and booze. He’d insisted on not over-buying this year, proclaiming that my habit of seeking out obscure ingredients for meals that don't ever see the light of day was to be firmly curbed. Nevertheless, the bank balance took a hit and we’ve had to be ingenious in finding ways to store our goodies in this not-so-well-designed kitchen. I won't be at all tempted to make fancy dinners though. Owen is cooking an over-large goose for us all at their place tomorrow and I have the excuse of being a vagrant to be less than the perfect hostess this year. But we do have turkey, and pickled onions, so I can always make sandwiches. Sorry, vegetarians; are pickled onion sandwiches acceptable? (I can't remember what else we've stuffed into these cupboards)
Today stretches out before me like an adventure. There's nothing I have to do, and being Christmas Eve, that is most unusual for me. Of course there's every possibility that when Owen starts preparing his goose-fest he may need another oven, or another kitchen even, and I will be called in as back up. For the meantime, though, I'm contemplating getting dressed in my cheapie sparkly jumper and heading to the King Arthur to sip away and slip into Christmas.
Have fun, everyone.
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