A Christmas Carol

At Christmas London seems a dead provincial city. No public transport, except exceptionally expensive taxi's. I have no idea what all these foreign visitors I encountered in my hotel this morning for breakfast will be doing today. Most pubs and restaurants are closed as well. Even the one at the hotel. The English seem to take that for a merry Christmas. It's heavily clouded over Queen's Gate Gardens. Large parts of the country are flooded because of the weather resembling a deluge. There's a lot of red around. Where ever you go people with Santa hats, even in Brussels yesterday when checking in for the Eurostar. Only the UK Border Control refrained from wearing them it seemed. They carried out surprisingly severe checks the English, both at the Brussels' terminal and at King's Cross. Every loudspeaker spits out the usual Anglo-Saxon Christmas garbage. Sentimental rubbish that makes one sadder than the saddening weather does.

My London cousin is expecting me for Christmas dinner. At breakfast I looked at the map how to get to her. I have to walk from Chelsea to Fulham. Charles Dickens, writer of world famous Christmas carols, was an enthusiastic walker. He walked great distances with ease and sometimes in the middle of the night. He knew the way though. I always lose mine. Even yesterday, walking the short distance from the underground station Gloucester Road to my hotel I managed to take a wrong turning though I stayed there more than once. Two helpful young ladies, miraculously without Santa hats, put me back on my trail. I could make life easy and call a taxi but even without the Christmas surcharge I reckon them much too expensive. Besides I need some exercise in this week of eating and drinking.

Dickens could be rather sentimental. Half of lettered Britain was in tears at the death of Little Nell. Even the Queen it was rumoured. I wonder what Dickens would have thought of the imbecillic practice of Santa hats. What would he have thought of being forced to hear the continuous droning of I'm dreaming of a white Christmas or even worse of that ear torturing Jingle bells? I have to set out on my walk which I estimate at about an hour. Unless I lose my way again. In which case I have to rely on Marley's spirit and call a taxi after all, even if it has a Santa hat at the wheel. Scrooge will settle the bill.

©C.A. Klok

London, Christmas 2012