Ramblings

You'd think that taking down the Christms cards was the end of the story, but no: this is when I really enjoy them. Perhaps if I were better organised I'd be excited as the early arrivals trickle in, a sign that Chritmas really is approaching in; instead I feel guilt that we haven't sent - and this year, haven't even bought - our cards yet. The trickle becomes a flood, and I barely even have time to open the ones addressed specifically to me; durham_rambler takes charge, and opens the bulk of the cards, and arranges them around the sitting room. This sounds grouchy, but it's temporary: I like sending and receiving cards, I like seeing them around the place, and now that it's all over I get a chance to enjoy them.

My initial impression was that the dominant theme was birds, not necessarily those traditionally associated with Christmas, and yes, that still seems to be the case. We have:
( 'Who cares for you?' said Alice... 'You're nothing but a pack of cards!' )

So the birds are, as I suspected, definitely in the majority.

Now, is there anywhere local I can recycle these? Not all of them, there are some I'd like to keep, but most of them can go, if only I can find somewhere for them to go to...

Last Thursday, the forecast was that Storm Goretti wouldn't arrive before late at night - ( Wait, Storm WHAT? ) - so, having visited the greengrocer in the morning to stock up, we decided we were safe to go to Newcastle for Phantoms at the Phil.

The Phantoms briefly haunted the Prohibition Bar in Pink Lane, but having outlived that venue have now returned to their original home at the Lit & Phil. Fittingly, it was in many ways a classic example of the event: three authors read three new(ish) stories with a supernatural disposition, not admittedly in the book-lined splendour of the library itself, but in the rather better acoustics of a downstairs room. Each story was completely unlike the others, and each was a perfect example of its author's approach to the brief.

Sean O'Brien's Events at the House of M. Garamond had nothing ghostly about it: the narrator confronts horrors which are demonic but corporeal in nature, against which a pistol is an appropriate weapon. At the break I asked Sean what he had against garamond (the M. Garamond of the tale is not only evil but ineffectual, which is unforgiveable): on the contrary, he said, it was his preferred typeface. It was days later, chopping red cabbage for dinner and wondering why he had chosen to set this dark tale beside the Canal du Midi (a part of France of which I have many sunny memories), that it occurred to me what I should have asked him: had he been reading much Simenon lately? Now I wonder whether I had been listening to an adventure of Inspector Maigret, Demon Hunter?

The promise is that these will be new stories, but Gail-Nina Anderson produced a previously lost story, Boxes and Books, written some ten years ago, which had recently resurfaced: she took its reappearance as a hint, and certainly it fitted the theme of the narrative. The narrator is definitely not a hoarder (she repeatedly assures us of this) but, obliged by domestic emergency to move the boxes and books of the title, she finds things vanishing and reappearing in a distinctly spooky manner. Definitely not aubiographical, then? said pretty much the entire audience in unison.

So it was left to the guest reader to provide an actual, classical, ghost story. But David Almond is a not-exactly-guest, a revenant at Phantoms, and he knows what is required. His contribution, titled Ghost Story, is certainly that: but is it a spoiler to reveal that the ghosts themselves do not appear until the very end? Up to that point it it not certain that there will be actual phantoms: perhaps it is the story itself that is the ghost, something flimsy and ungraspable, a half-memory from childhood of a tale half-told, half-withheld... As characteristic of its author as the evening's other two stories but also, as promised by the title, an absolutely proper ghost story, it brought the proceedings to a close by tying a big bow around the package.

There was still no sign of Storm Goretti when we left the building, but a cold rain was falling. We felt safe to give S. a lift home across town, and indeed all went smoothly until we were very nearly home. Once we had turned off the main road, though, things got a bit more interesting. The car skidded briefly on the last downhill of the back street, but the ABS brakes did their job, and durham_rambler was able to steer us round the last two corners and into our own street. Where we skidded again, and rather than try to manouevre down to our front door (where the car would be vulnerable to ther drivers losing control on the bend), durham_rambler pulled carefully in to the side of the road just where we were, and we did the last 50 yards on foot. This was an adventure in itself. That cold rain had fallen onto frosty pavements and formed a skin of ice. I was glad that the council had not yet swept away the last of the fallen leaves, which had drifted into the shelter of the garden wall, and I managed, by digging my heels into the soft leaves and clinging to whatever branches the hedge offered (I still have the scratches) to reach the alley, then to cross it. Two houses to go, and the first has convenient railings to hold on to; the pavement seemed less icy, too. Later our next-door neighbour told us he had gritted the pavement outside his house, and that may have helped; he had also put out a Christmas tree for collection, and that didn't - one last obstacle, only slightly bigger than I am, to negotiate before our own front door step! A very small adventure, but quite enough excitement for me.

With Phantoms, Christmas is definitely over. I took down the cards - which are our sole nod to decorations - the next day.