Bunty Takes Sanctuary at the Manor

TREE TRIMMING AT THE MANOR

The Manor House tree is up and decorated and the place is filled with the smell of pine and polish.

The whole family helped and for once, there were no arguments.

Alyona insisted on her pre-decorating deep clean first… she likes to give all the wood work a good rub over before we start putting the holly up and then Crichton can dragg the tree in and make everything dusty again. 

It's an enormous specimen this year, and completely fills the hall, with the top branches reaching almost to the second-floor landing. Maybe if it was just a tad less bushy we could get up the stairs without scratching our legs but Crichton is not a man to downsize. 

Heaven only knows where we shall hang our coats for the duration. 

Actually I wish we'd turned of the radiator on the landing as the tree is already beginning to drop. There's no way we can get to the thermostat now so Alyona will complain like mad about the pine needles everywhere. I can't understand why she makes such a fuss. After all, it's not as if they don't have fir trees in Estonia. Prickly socks and a clogged Dyson are just part of the Christmas ritual.

Crichton checked all the lights. That's his man-job.  They were working before he put them on the tree but not afterwards, (t'was ever thus) so Jerome whizzed down to Just Do It for a new set while Crichton took them all off again. I headed off his fit of the sulks by giving him extra supply of Lindor balls and he has hidden around the back away from prying eyes. He can't get enough of them.

Once the lights were back on, we set to with a will, each adding their special favourites in solemn processional the end...Granny T's chocolate cat from before sell by dates were invented, Crichton's Chinese lanterns without tassels (Trenton nibbled those off when he was a puppy), a painted fir cone made by Jerome  and Arraminta's aged toilet roll angel poised on the very top.

There was only one casualty…the old glass rocking horse galloped its last furlong and crashed to the floor while I was looping up the lametta. We bought it the year Shergar won the Derby. Normally I would have been sad or cross but with everyone in such good spirits it didn’t seem to matter. 

Then Cook served up the traditional Tinsel Tea. That's another strange thing that stretches back through the annals of Trehorlicks history. Marmite and lettuce sandwiches, fondant fancies and a pink jelly rabbit with tinned peaches. I think Crichton's great-grandfather used to like this combination as a child and nobody had the heart to change the menu after he lost his leg at Verdun. It's not my taste de thé at all.   Give me cheese and biscuits or a smoked salmon blini any day,  but as long as the others are happy, I go with the flow.  My little hip flask of sherry is a great comfort. 

Crichton comments.

The tree is splendid. The biggest one ever and for once Cynthia isn't complaining about it. The bigger the better IMO…all the more room for chocs. Spilled jelly down my front.