A Very Flashy Christmas from Brassington

We had a homesick moment earlier this week - a sudden urge to sip gluhwein beneath the benign gaze of Albert Square's Father Christmas, and to listen to the song of the Christmas Market reindeer. Of course we told ourselves that it'd be too crowded to move and that we've seen it all before anyway - loads of times, year after year: sparkly lights, pre-fab chalets, wooden toys - but you know, we weren't convinced. Sometimes you just want to eat a big sausage in the freezing rain and buy more stuff you don't really need.  It's not just the market we were homesick for, of course, but for ourselves as city people. Bone-deep, mind-forged Manc identities can't be unmade just by moving house.


But then the next day it snowed and when it stopped we went walking along the High Peak trail. It was one of those perfect winter days: the sky as blue as summer, the fields ice green, the brilliant, sparkly air.

It's tempting to make this into a simple feel-good story . .  we were homesick for the city, for its crowds and culture, for those well-known Lancashire delicacies: gluhwein and bratworst . . . but then were comforted, diverted, healed by nature. It's an old story - Wordsworth and the Romantics are partly to blame - but it's not quite true.  We loved the snow but sometimes you just need bad wine and tacky trinketry.  

So . . I went home and made gluhwein which Him outdoors said wasn't a patch on the reindeer's but he drank most of it anyway. And, anyway, this village has got its very own very dynamic light show at the gateway into the churchyard:    

A Very Happy Flashy Christmas to you all!