I have had a long and tumultuous
relationship with Christmas. Actually that’s completely inaccurate. What I mean
to say is that I haven’t really liked Christmas since I was about 14. I’ve blogged about it before, in fact, so I won’t go into great detail, but
basically it’s always been a disappointment, or stressful, or a combination of
both.
As I’ve matured I’ve come to realise that
vehemently hating things is kind of draining, and also not particularly amusing
to friends and people around you who kind of just want to enjoy their day and
don’t want to listen to you being so *different* by not liking *Christmas*. I’m
not about to buy tinsel themed outfits or anything, but my objection to the
holiday has certainly mellowed.
And this Christmas just gone was the best
of my adult life.
After LonDon, Boyfriend and I caught a
train to Bath. Due to flooding, this was an adventure in itself. Our train was
cancelled, but we (along with hundreds of others) were allowed on the next one.
This meant we had to stand in Paddington Station waiting for an announcement
and then run (literally run) with all our luggage and amongst a mob of people
to the platform. This also meant we were on an incredibly crowded train filled
with young Londoners heading home for Christmas. I haven’t been in such a
20-something heavy crowd since university. If you’d done a survey you would
have found perhaps 2 or 3 outliers represented in a baby and an old couple,
terrified at their mistake, and everybody else would have been within 2 or 3
years of the mean age of 25. That’s right, statistics, people, statistics.
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| Bath. |
Bath is nice. Incredibly nice. The entire
city is heritage listed, which means everything looks like it did hundreds of
years ago, except that instead of having sewing shops and teahouses it has
Marks and Spencer and Starbucks. Actually that’s an exaggeration, Bath still
has heaps of teahouses. Probably they are the same teahouses Jane Austen sat in
and thought, “I’ll make him seem really aloof and cold but actually he’s just
shy and dreamy! Genius!”
When we arrived at our hotel, there was a
jazz band made up of teenagers playing really good jazz. We listened to the
jazz and ate afternoon tea and thought about how is was 42 degrees back home.
Then we walked back down to the train station to meet Amy, who is our friend,
who has been living in the UK for more than a year and who would be spending
Christmas with us. Back at the hotel the jazz band had gone, but the afternoon
tea remained. It was a good compromise. Plus we discovered the cocktail list.
What followed was three days of eating and
drinking and being stupid. On Christmas Day we went for a walk through the
almost empty streets, looked at houses for rent and decided we definitely
should move to Bath, the three of us, and have adventures. We came back to a
five-course lunch, where we befriended our waitress, got tipsy and wore paper
hats.
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| Hats. |
Ok, no I actually got a bit drunk, so while Amy and Boyfriend went to the
bar to continue drinking, I (probably not so) quietly excused myself and
retired to our room where I proceeded to have an hour long bath (in Bath, yes)
and sobered up slightly.
After dinner that I can’t believe we had
any room for, we watched the Doctor Who
Christmas special, wherein I managed not to weep like a baby until Amy Pond’s
surprise cameo, at which point I think I looked like my face had had a shower.
As soon as it was over, we switched channels to ITV, and Amy and I watched the Downton Christmas special as well. As
strange as it is to say, watching TV that night was one of the highlights. I
discovered Doctor Who with these
people (Boyfriend and Amy, I mean, as well as others) and we got to enjoy it as
it aired in England, together. Similarly, Amy and I have been watching Downton together for some years now, and
it felt so nice to lie on a bed and watch a silly English drama in England with
her.
We spent Boxing Day drinking. I mean, we
went for a walk and stuff, and things were open this time so that was nice, but
mostly we continued to make our way through the cocktail list. The head
bartender had some kind of degree in cocktails. The dude was amazing; he mixed
us drinks not even on the list, had a vegetarian Bloody Mary recipe and gave us
all gifts at the end of our stay. Basically he made our Christmas even more
amazing (and drunk) than it was already.
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| Boyfriend bought me this owl bag for Christmas |
Things I managed to not mention
chronologically but definitely warrant a mention:
- Boardgames in hotel lounges are the
business.
- We came third in the trivia despite being
at a significant disadvantage when they started asking England-specific
Christmas questions.
- There was a “ski bar” outside the hotel
that did warm cider and jars of cocktails.
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| I'm not kidding. |
- We went to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve
even though Boyfriend and Amy weren’t actually that keen and it was basically
just me bullying them into coming so that I could sing all the songs and
pretend I was still in a choir and that was really nice of them.
- Some swans tried to kill us.
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| Right after I took this I started running. |
- The meals were absolutely incredible and I discovered
what celeriac is and it makes good soup.
- I was too drunk to work out how to use the
bath plug and had to get someone from reception to show me.
- All traditional Christmas decorations make
300x more sense in cold climates and did not fill me with nearly as much rage
as usual so that was nice.
- Hey Australia, let’s get some decorations
that don’t have fake snow on them, how about that?
- Christmas can be really awesome.
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