A Classic English Christmas

It's Boxing Day today, a day I hadn't even heard of 'til just about a week ago, and if I had heard it before, it'd have been something of a bout like the title fights of old in my mind.  Joe Lewis and Ali.  The one with George Foreman, more more recently Pacquiao, the thrilla' from Manilla.  Something viscous and bloody, boxing.  Mais non, says the French ring on my finger from English love.  My fresh air, my Claire.  Boxing day is a day by the tree, all the lights sparkling, young Oliver giggling away.  He makes me want to read Dickens again, like I did when I was his age, young Twist.  What a trip it's been, this romp through the countryside.

(designer Keith Norman)

Perhaps it's the air, the cool, the cold.  The wet and the wides tides that come through the inlet here, under the bridge between us and Bideford, but there's been wiped out to sea, like a quick rip's taken all the whole out, all the feeling, bad or good.  It's familiar and I feel like writing again.

It's distance.

In the eyes.

Some fink from long ago.  Like Sammy Davis Jr. on an empty stage under two spotlights, come across the pond for the BBC in the 60's.  Black and White.  Gunslinging.  Laughing.  Impersonating.  Sans serif title, justified.

She's saying I remind her of him.
Sammy Davis Jr.
The Performer.

Ad-libbing Just Once In A Moment and All The Way as Tony Bennett and Frank, and Dean of course. He's really quite amazing.  So is Victor sitting in his chair there and wagging his foot away.  Bless his heart, for the snowballs, for the meat pies and the laughs, for everything.  Bless Derrick too, for his goatee and his mega-kabob and his "fair play" and everything.  It's a lot of change for two weeks, two nights in a castle.