Are we ready to carve the twerky?
THE only way to navigate this difficult time of world and national strife and personal inconvenience is to have a laugh and I had to smile when my pal went for an eye test.
The optician asked him what he could see.
“I see empty airports, empty football grounds, closed pubs and closed theatres,” he said.
“That’s perfect,” said the optician. “You have 2020 vision.”
Christmas has been reduced to just one day when we can mingle and the Government has decreed we can meet up to eight people without any problems.
Trouble is, I don’t know eight people without any problems... Just before lockdown, Maria and I spent a winter weekend in a country hotel and noticed a group of chess players bragging about their games in the lobby.
How seasonal, I thought. Chess nuts boasting in an open foyer.
I discovered this week that a problem shared can be a problem doubled when I told my suitcases there would be no holidays for the foreseeable future.
Now I’m having to deal with emotional baggage.
A lady friend of ours has carefully planned her Christmas dinner. “I’ll be having salad,” she said.
“Actually fruit salad. Well, mostly grapes. OK, all grapes. Fermented grapes. Wine. I’ll be having wine for Christmas dinner.”
Which reminds me that people who worry if the glass is half full or half empty totally miss the point. The glass is refillable.
Finally, in this season of festive indulgence, here’s a culinary question.
If you boil a funny bone, does it become a laughing stock? Now come on, you have to admit that’s humerus.
No? Well, what does Miley Cyrus have at Christmas? Twerky, of course.
Which inevitably leads me to the Yorkshire definition of Twerk – well, it’s where everybody goes on a Monday morning.
TWO small things to be grateful for this Christmas: no one will have to get out the emergency chairs to fit everyone round the extended dinner table, with the inevitable argument about who gets the wonky one and who gets the table leg. And there is unlikely to be the usual blitz of foreign holiday adverts on TV from Boxing Day onwards.
Apart from that, remember the virus is dangerous, take all essential precautions, stay safe and have a Christmas that is reflective and cheery, and look forward with hope to a brighter tomorrow.