I hadn’t quite prepared myself for my day today. The message I got was to go up to my husband with a sandwich and relieve him of his duties for an hour so he could do what men do best, sit on the jacks and read the Racing Post for an hour. I know it’s still November but being a Saturday my husband decided to start his annual Christmas Tree selling, really just to show people he was back and would be there for the duration.
Being the wonderful wife that I am, I added love and devotion into that sandwich making. Thick crusty bread, Carroll’s ham, white cheddar cheese that was on special offer (I normally go for red) and brown sauce. I carefully washed out the flask that hadn’t been used since last year to make his a flask of tea, no sugar (I don’t love him that much, I was having some of that tea and I don’t take sugar). To finish off, a bar of Cadburys chocolate (I was definitely having a bit of that!).
Armed with my life sustaining bag of goods I set off to our man made enchanted forest in a car park in Raheny. The sandwich was devoured, tea was drank and the first ‘favour’ asked. Could I stay while he got his phone fixed? His phone has been broken since JULY.. but in fairness, in went into it’s final death throes today and in this age of technology, not having a phone is akin to having a one armed lumber jack with a compound fracture on his other.
Like I said, I was ill prepared for the day. No hat, no gloves, only one pair of socks and too short jacket. As you can imagine, I didn’t have too many customers, so there was a lot of sitting around on walls and the arse was frozen off me. I didn’t even bring a book but I did have my phone and found a wifi hub which was fine until my phone went dead, so I people watched. There was the man who liked to sit on the benches and drink bottles of beer. I wanted to zip his hoodie up and drag him to the nearest St. Vincent De Paul to get him a warm jacket. He had a hat on at least so I knew he would survive the winter, if his liver didn’t pack in. There was the man who passed by on his way to the shops, very well dressed for the weather. He had the slow steady gait of a man who had spent many a year on this planet, slightly favouring his right side and the cuff of his trousers on his left leg was caught up in his sock. Again, I had an almost uncontrollable urge to go over and ‘fix him’. He had an old but well tailored coat and a woolly hat to finish his look. Under is hat he had a big pair of earphones, they looked suspiciously like a pair of Beats. If the trouser leg didn’t get me, it was the urge to lift his earphones up to hear the heavy bass tone and the ‘parental supervision required’ version of the latest rap from Eminem.
My favourite though was the little girl with her dad and her even littler sister. They were here to pick a tree and she was given the task, but only after her dad and I established that she was a good girl, that she had written her letter to Santa and she could spell superfragilisticexpialidocious (only joking). She took her job very seriously and walked through the trees like she was Michael D Higgins greeting the Irish Rugby Team. Each tree got a quick feel, a smell and occasionally a few words were spoken to them to see if they cut the mustard. She had a firm idea in her mind of what she wanted, she was a practical child, the tree had to be taller than Daddy but not too tall that it became bendy and not too fat in case she couldn’t open the door. Decision made she transformed herself into Kofi Annan, saying goodbye to the trees not lucky enough to be part of their Christmas celebrations. She gave them words of encouragement, telling them she liked them a lot and they smelled so Christmassy. She stroked them as she passed and as I picked up the tree to give it to her dad she said, ‘No Daddy, the man will deliver it’. After diplomatic discussions between said Dad and child, the tree was taken away as I watched with a tear in my eye. I wanted to take her away, I wanted to wrap her in Christmas paper, pop her in a gift bag and put her under my tree as my own special gift.
noelsters 