NOT EVEN A MOUSE

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse........

This is the first poem I ever learned, for which read was forced by an older sister. It put me off poetry for decades. I was five at the time and had learned the ugly truth about Santa the Christmas before. I'd caught a glimpse of my parents filling my stocking. I took it very hard. I wept buckets. It was clear I had been born into a family of liars; indeed, an entire world of them.

It had been hard for a budding realist to get her head around the idea of a fat guy coming down a hot chimney and arriving by a sled pulled by flying reindeer. Pull the other one! What was wrong with a helicopter? But I'd hoped, you see, and was almost convinced. What was very nearly worse was that I was told not to tell other children. That made me one of them. A cynic was born that day.

But, I like Christmas. I like mice. I like saying auguri to absolutely everybody. I bought these mice in a lot at an auction near Dublin. They were the property of a zany lady who had a massive cupboard full of pink sheets, some of them new and a vast collection of ceramic frogs.

AUGURI A TUTTI VOI!

PS: While the above is all true and a character-forming event, it is also f-u-n-n-y.