A Present from the West

The air has been bitterly cold recently, but today a terrible western wind is blowing, and for the first time in ages it is almost warm. Cold comfort, though, when you are being dragged down the street with a tornado up your back passage. Hmm...maybe it wasn't that bad, but this is the time of year for tall tales. Why not?

So I stepped out of the house this morning into the gale and was shocked at the sheer violence of the gusts. I half expected to see people being carried off by the wind, hundreds of umbrella-wielding housewives shrieking across the skies like a grotesque army of valium-addicted Mary Poppinses. Oh, for an air pistol... Dismissing such idle thoughts, I looked around me. The landscape was not faring well. Patio tables were jumping from garden to garden, and wheelie bins looked like corpses on the street. Half-dead trees bowed down before me, and unsecured fences flapped madly in the gardens of people busy elsewhere...probably squabbling on an Easyjet landing in some overcrowded European city somewhere. "City", in this case, meaning a battered airport fifty miles away from anywhere, with toilets made of cardboard and a taxi rank full of blind drunk men with warty noses who respond to your questions by cackling and tapping their nose knowingly...but I digress.

Half way to the shops and a massive ridge tile was blown off a nearby roof and landed with a horrible crash somewhere behind me. Ye gods, I thought. This happened twice more on the way back...as if the ghost of Fred Dibnah was dancing on the rooftops with a pocketful of dynamite and a head full of crazy thoughts. By this time my heart was in my throat and I clutched ever harder onto my copies of Private Eye and the Guardian. The power of liberalism will save me, I thought. Any roof detritus that comes flying at me would be swatted away like confetti...and any wind-crazed idiots who didn't look where they were going - well, I could roll up the newspaper and get liberal on them in a way that would make the Marquis de Sade weep with joy.

Naturally I was glad to get back indoors. And even more so when I noticed none of the fallen tiles were from my roof.

As I write this, the wind continues to gust viciously. The letterbox chatters loudly to itself and the telephone wire outside the window is bouncing around like a boxer's skipping rope. But never mind. The forecast says that the wind is set to die down tomorrow...but this is of less concern to them than their excited chatter about parts of Great Britain being covered in snow on Christmas Day. Michael Fish is betting against it, and any winnings will go to charity.... Good god, has Max Clifford been sniffing around his gaffe since this most genial of weathermen retired?

In practice a large Christmas day snowfall is good news only for children. True, the rest of us will light the fire and gaze admiringly at the glistening landscape, but then we will curse the very name of God as we realise we are the one who has to drive across town to pick up the relatives.

But what the hell. I do not drive. And I will hole myself up inside on the day itself as usual, whether the sun is shining or a blizzard is raging. I will surround myself with the true meaning of Christmas...the kind destined to fill up a bottle bank on January 2nd. Happy Christmas!