Winter Wonderland

The Christmas season is here (and, to a certain extent, gone) once more. Christmas carols are once more being sung. Not by me, and not, if I have anything to do with it, anywhere remotely within my vicinity, but I'm assured that they are being sung. Snowflakes, snowmen, and a white Christmas . . .

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, that is. Because right now, in Australia, it's mid-twenties and seems to be staying there.

In fact, the only way any of us can get access to snow or ice is (a) by flying to the UK or (b) by going ice skating. Which I did. Not the flying to the UK bit. I did that  last year (it's not all it's cracked up to be, my shoelaces froze into position after half an hour outside). No, I went ice skating with Reedy, Lala, Aviator & Falcon. To put us in order of skill level:

REEDY - Reedy is practically professional. In fact, I think his sister IS actually a professional ice skater. While the rest of us were struggling to do up our skates and wobble up to the ice rink, he was calmly skating around in loops and figures of eights. In our two hours on the rink, I saw him:

- Skate backwards. Falcon did this too, but it didn't count in his case as he didn't actually mean to.

- Do the Nutbush - including the crossover bit at the end. Lala was so thrilled by this she made him do it again. And again.

- Go around the whole rink in 10 seconds. 10 of Aviator's seconds, that is, and about 6 the way Lala was counting. We would have been more precise but Reedy took the only watch with him.

- Not fall over ONCE

AVIATOR & LALA - Aviator and Lala were about the same. Nowhere near as good as Reedy, but still far better than me. This was slightly disappointing as before we actually stepped on to the ice Lala had assured me that she'd only been ice skating three times previously - the same as me - and therefore I expected her to have the same skill level as me. This turned out to be far from the truth. I can't remember how many times Aviator fell over; he might not have fallen at all. Lala only fell over once, in a me-related incident I shall recount later on.

FALCON - He's below Aviator & Lala as he fell over six times. And yes, I was counting. To my eternal disappointment, I missed all of them except the second-last one. On the very last one he refused to get up again, claiming that it was nicer to be sitting on the ice than to be forced to skate around on it. He got up when it started to melt.

I'm convinced that his persistent falls related, in part, to his refusals to take off his sunglasses. WHO wears aviators indoors? No, really. WHO? Aside from Falcon, obviously.

ME - I managed to stop skating along the side whenever I was holding on to someone. I managed to stop holding on to people when I got back to the side. Figure it out.

I only fell over once, although this was less to do with any skill I might have for skating and more to do with the fact that I was going far too slowly to actually pull myself over. The details of the fall are as follows:

I'd decided to have another go at skating on my own. I had had several goes at skating on my own, and these invariably ended with me just managing to reach either Lala or Falcon and clutching dramatically at them for support. The logical thing to do, then, when I realised I was unlikely to be able to stay upright any longer on my own, was to aim for the nearest one. Lala was innocently standing still near a wall when I crashed into her, flailing madly. I attempted to grab her to stop myself falling down. What happened instead is that we both began to topple over and finally crashed into the ice. Neither of us were injured - although I was fairly embarrassed - so I still maintain we could have carried it off if we'd had time to get up before anyone noticed. Unfortunately, we were both laughing too hard to get up. I fear we'll never make professionals; at least, not unless every other professional skates like this:

Aviator has, in the past, discussed with me how he's unhappy with the way I'm portraying him. 'Discussed' is probably the wrong term to use. He called me three times in a row threatening to burn my house down unless I started changing things immediately. He even went to the effort of setting his computer to talk on the phone instead of him. The point of this paragraph, however, is to get one meaning across: Aviator is NOT going to like the next story. Every word of this is true, but I just know I'm going to get more threatening phone calls from him. Or possibly wake up in the middle of the night to discover that my house has burned down. Therefore, it is recommended that viewers who like/are Aviator do not read the next story.

Aviator had spent some time previously warning us as to the dangers of keeping your wallet in your back pocket. 'I'll prove it to you,' he explained. 'I'll pick Reedy's pocket.'

He pulled his wallet out and proffered it to Reedy. 'Just put this in your back pocket.'

Reedy did, and Aviator carefully moved around. 'Now, you see, I just stick my hand in his pocket and remove the wallet. The victim is barely able to feel it.'

'I can feel it,' said Reedy, looking slightly concerned.

'Now I pull the wallet out - hang on -'

'Please take your hand out of my back pocket.'

'That's disturbing,' said Lala when she'd stopped laughing for long enough to get words out.

'And here we are!' Aviator said triumphantly, proffering the wallet. 'Very efficient.'

Basically, the moral of this story is that although it may not be safe to keep your wallet in your back pocket when you're worried about pickpockets, it's even less safe to have it in your back pocket when you're anywhere near Aviator.

Christmas Day was, of course, far from cold. Nevertheless, my family perseveres with tradition: turkey, ham, and that bowl-shaped pudding you're supposed to set on fire. Nothing like a flammable dessert in 30 degree weather.

We tend to spend Christmas with varying amounts of grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and other relations. I personally spent much of Christmas Day torn between my grandfather explaining how the Harper family are apparently distantly related to a firm of funeral directors on my grandmother's side and my two- and four-year-old cousins, who were less concerned about family history and more interested in me playing hide and seek with them. I eventually resisted the pull of all my relations and went to my room, where I began to listen to the very first episode of a radio series I'd received for Christmas. Called The Blow Parade, it describes a series of fictional bands throughout the classic

 ages of music, and is narrated by the everpresent Captain Blow (or Andrew Hansen). I admit the picture makes him look like an elderly boat-oriented paedophile, but the series is excellent.

Anyway, I was just getting into this when I heard a knock at my door. This was followed by several seconds of quiet conversation, and finally a voice I recognised as belonging to my four-year-old cousin- whom I shall call An - saying 'The door won't open.'

I paused the episode and opened the door. 'What is it?'

Both cousins and the RCG were standing outside. 'We need you to be in Sleeping Beauty,' the RCG said wearily.

'What?'

'We're recreating Sleeping Beauty, and we need someone to be the witch.'

'Oh, thank you so much.'

I went into the room next door to be the witch, despite the fact that I have no memory of what the witch is supposed to do in Sleeping Beauty. I sat through a long, involved scene starring my two-year-old cousin - Pan - as Sleeping Beauty and the RCG as a good fairy when suddenly somebody nudged me. 'It's your bit,' An informed me.

'Already?' I said doubtfully. 'I don't remember this bit. Um, yes . . . I'm here to . . .'

'Curse them,' said An helpfully.

'By the power of Captain Blow, I curse you both to . . .'

'That's not right!' she said indignantly, and went into a long demonstration of how to do it properly. In the confusion, I sneaked back to my room.

After a few more minutes of listening I heard, once more, a knock at the door. I opened it to see Pan.

'I want to play a game,' she said. 'Let's play hide-and-seek.'

'Yeah, you know what's an even better game?' I said brightly. 'Lie-on-the-bed-and-listen-to-The-Blow-Parade-without-interruption.'

'How do you play that one?'

'Well, it's complicated,' I said, ushering her out of the room.

Before long, how ever, I was once more forcibly removed from my room to provide entertainment. This time, somebody had had the bright idea of making parachutes, so we used bits of paper and string to make them (obviously they weren't for us. We attached toy soldiers to them. The RCG and An's soldier was delicately tied by his leg. My and Pan's was less delicately tied around his neck. It looked painful).

We tied a long bit of string to the top of each parachute so we wouldn't have to go down and get it once we'd dropped it off the balcony, we could just pull it up again. Pan and I went first. She dropped it, and then we both craned over the edge to see it land.

'Now pull it up again,' she said when it had reached ground level.

'Pan?' I asked.

'Yes?'

'You know that only works if you hold on to the string?'

That was Christmas. Far from freezing but fun.