It was in the early hours of Christmas morning when I was awoken by a loud crash from the direction of the chimney breast.
I look arround and my
wife who is a very light sleeper hadn’t stirred.
Now given the time of
the year and the time of night someone younger or more impressionable might
have thought it was Father Christmas about his work in the chimney.
However being a
grizzled old cynic I thought it more likely to be either a burglar or perhaps
the wind blowing over my chimney or even subsidence.
I lay awake for about
ten minutes trying to work out what the noise was and hearing no further noises
I decided it must have been a dream and went back to sleep.
A few hours later
awoken suddenly again this time by three excitement crazed children dragging
their sacks of presents behind them on thing was for sure there would be no
return to sleep after this disturbance.
When the children had
opened all their stocking presents they rushed off downstairs for breakfast
leaving a scene of devastation behind them.
After breakfast I went
back upstairs and showered and then went into the bedroom to dress for the day.
On opening the
wardrobe door I discovered the source of the crash that had woken me up several
hours earlier.
The rail in the
wardrobe had collapsed and all the clothes were in a heap at the bottom on top
of the shoes.
“So it wasn’t a dream
then” I said to myself.
Five minutes later and
wearing a slightly creased shirt I made my way back downstairs to what sounded
like bedlam.
The rest of the
morning went according to plan; the children opened their main presents from
under the tree and disappeared off to play with their favourites.
By twelve o’clock the
dining table was laid complete with my late mother’s best table cloth,
Christmas napkins, party favours, best china, glassware and the brand new table
centre while emanating from the kitchen was the sound of steam rattling the
saucepan lids together with the mouth watering aroma of roasting Turkey.
In the lounge my wife
was holding court with myself and her parents looking on as she was opening the
few presents that still remained.
I left the group to go
and boil the kettle for a drink as I entered the kitchen I looked at the
electric cooker and there was one ring lit with nothing on it so I checked the
other rings to make sure that the saucepan with the potatoes had heat under it
which it did.
So I went to switch
off the vacant ring only to discover it was already switched off.
Now there had been a
little water spilled on the hob from where one of the pans had begun to boil
over so I mopped up the spillage and using reverse psychology I turned the
rogue ring on believing this would in fact turn it off, it didn’t it just
tripped the breaker in the meter cupboard instead.
I went to the cupboard
and reset the breaker and it tripped immediately.
So then we decided to
wait for ten minutes before we repeated the exercise which ended with the same
result.
It was decided that we
could not use the cooker as it was just too dangerous.
With my wife almost in
tears I said “it’s not the end of the world darling, and nobody died”.
So with true Dunkirk
spirit we made the best of a bad situation.
As luck would have it
the Turkey was cooked as was the stuffing, sausages and the Potatoes where
boiled.
The remaining
vegetables we were able to cook in the microwave and all we had to forgo were
the roast potatoes and parsnips.
Now it wasn’t the most
successful Christmas lunch we ever had but it could have been a lot worse.
“Bad things always
come in three’s” I think we all thought it but equally all refrained from
saying it out loud.
The next day, Sunday,
passed off without incident for us anyway, my wife had to hit the stores in the
Boxing Day sales to choose a new cooker.
Its late in the
evening when, sitting down in front of the TV we see the news for the first
time that day and we here the dreadful news about the Tsunami for the first
time and even then it didn’t even hint at just how big a tragedy it really was.
Two hundred and fifty
thousand dead in a heartbeat from Indonesia to sir Lanka and beyond and still
counting.
We had our new cooker
delivered on Thursday 30th December we were inconvenienced for five
whole days.
Five days before
normality was restored to our household.
Many of The survivors
of the Tsunami will never have their lives restored to what they knew before
Boxing Day.
Count your blessings
and make the best of what you have because it’s a lot more than many.
