It’s long been a claim of feminists that a certain sort of male professional always addresses his explanations to the man of the house. Awareness campaigns, lobbies, demonstrations and re-education of men seem to have been excessively successful in our experience. I expect upholsterers and decorators to discuss fabrics and colours with Deirdre, but lately tree surgeons, builders, plumbers, car salesmen and broadband engineers have all fazed me out of their sight-lines and entered into detailed and technical debate with the lady of our house. Possibly it’s because they see my eyes beginning to roll and glass over and naturally defer to someone who appears to be genuinely interested or perhaps because my very subtle pro-feminist stance deflects them to the female. I learned to show very little interest when one engineer on his annual servicing visit went into unnecessary detail about his divorce. Episode two of this domestic serial continued the following year, but by year three it was how clever he had been in buying a caravan and year four was his re-marriage. By then I was incredulous that anyone should want to see him more than once a year. Maybe my mental withdrawals from these technical conversations are because I’m afraid someone is going to slip a divorce, house fire or bankruptcy in among the data about broadband speeds. And now to something completely unrelated.....
Oh the weather outside is frightful But the fire is so delightful And since we've no place to go
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!.
These Dean Martin lyrics seem particularly apt today. Outside flowerpots are rolling about and wind chimes rattling and annoying neighbours. We’ve no place to go except, perhaps Lidls, but with Amber Valley now having one of the highest infection rates in the country we might have to forgo the opportunity to buy a random screwdriver set, multipack of Hoover bags or wet suit and snorkel for each other’s Christmas presents.
I’m not sure about Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! We used to expect snow a couple of times per winter and it would be nice to have some normality in the weather, if only to reassure us that we won’t frizzle up next year. But the appeal of those lines lies in the problems of getting stressed trying to plan church services and synchronise with village activities when there are so many unknowns, provisional arrangements and back-up plans needed. It’s even reached a stage where an on-line concert we’d bought into has had to be postponed because the performer can’t get a baby-sitter! And these are professionals! Fortunately everyone has become used to cancellations, postponements and disappointments and accepts them with a stoical shrug.
Today, in our attempts at shaping the future, we’ve resolved not to expect plans to be writ in stone or cast-iron, whichever material you prefer and just manage our expectations. That’s the surest route to sanity. So Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! becomes a permit to bank up the fire, be cool (or warm) and in the immortal words of Tess Daly, “Keep Dancing.”. There’s plenty of precedents from Doris Day ‘Que Sera Sera’ to Jesus in Matthew 6.28 telling us not to worry about the future in his “Consider the lilies of the field” advice. We must get over this wretched perception we have that we can always take the future by the throat and twist it into compliance. We’ve learned lately that it bites back. But even though somewhere in the echoing hollows of my memory I can hear Elvis, on a very early LP singing, “For I know who holds the future,” I’m delighted that Crich is nevertheless abuzz with folk taking initiatives, devising daring strategies for singing carols, lighting up the houses, hanging wreathes, erecting nativity scenes and ringing bells. And because our residents are amazingly philosophical, inventive and flexible most of this is safely outdoors, so ‘Let it Snow’ but not too much. Crich is set to become a tinkling Whoville in the face of this Grinchy pandemic. Crich will outwit the Grinch Who Stole Christmas..
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!.