Bah Sunshine

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellows,

I hate to break it to you but it has been another beautiful day here today. Please don't hate me, Northern-Hemispherical People. It is not my fault the New Zealanders chose to have Summer in Winter. No-one asked me.

I was going to exacerbate matters by posting a picture of me in my budgie-smugglers, sitting by the pool and drinking cocktails, but I know it would just anger you further. And anyway, I don't have a pool. Or a cocktail. And my budgie fell off its perch and died years ago. 

So instead here is a picture of a bunch of paddle-boarders. Frozen in time, they look like they know what they are doing. In fact, I have to report to you that they were all paddling in different directions at once, and going backwards.

But if you are still bitter about our lovely weather, look at it this way - when you are having Summer in Summer, I'll be cold and miserable and I won't even have CHRISTMAS to cheer me up.

Instead it is Christmas NOW, and although the Kiwis are making an effort it really doesn't feel like it. There are trees, and lights and pictures of Santa in fur and mittens waving at me in shops, but it is proving ineffective. I'm feeling very unfestive. Even if Mariah Carey herself was to dress up in a Santa suit and shove a candy-cane right up my hole I would still feel nothing*.

And this was after I went into the Nespresso shop to get more Pixie Pods. That store is FLASH. I felt like Er Indoors must feel when she goes shopping for make-up at Harvey Nicks. All the assisants were dressed like flight attendants and the inside of the store looked like a really trendy loft apartment. They had fancy Christmas pods you could buy and a lavishly decorated tree in the corner.
 
There is something about this level of flash that makes me want to act up. "Hello, I'm an idiot," I said to the glamorous assisant. She remained unruffled. Dammit.

I explained to her that I didn't know what I was doing, that I didn't understand coffee and that I had bought a Pixie but honestly this whole coffee thing was confusing and perplexing. She was very good. She sold me 4 boxes of additional pods and signed me up for the Nespresso newsletter. I left the store with a little Xmassy bag and headed back to work, walking under the "Welly Christmas" signs.

I started thinking about Christmas films. The Princess and I had discussed "Miracle on 34th Street" on Monday, and I was annoyed that I hadn't mentioned "A Christmas Story" to her. Princess, you HAVE to watch that with the Mini Princesses this weekend! It is the BEST Christmas film ever. I watch it every year! 

I'm also very fond of "Elf" of course and "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" and "Comfort and Joy" and "The Grinch" and "The Bishop's Wife" and "Die Hard". In addition, I like to watch all the Xmas specials of "Frasier" and "Will & Grace" and "Porridge" and "Third Rock From The Sun". I love Christmas.

But yet.... I think this year it won't help. It isn't dark or cold. Noddy Holder can't be heard in any stores anywhere. I think my only option is to relocate the whole of Christmas. All of it. To put up my tree in June. To hang tinsel for my birthday. All I want for Xmas is cold, but all I want on December 25th is barbecue food. 

I think we can make this work out, somehow. 

S.

* Mildly embarrassed, perhaps.