Works for string orchestra by Edward Elgar tune the air to my right as I pump the QWERTY (this is a technical term used by typists) in our 17th. century dining room on a table which is not quite as old, but is much, much older than anyone I know.
At this moment I am beginning to feel a love of Englishness returning to me. This "Englishness" is, more accurately, embracing one idea of what "Englishness" represents. Ex-patriates or emigrÈs tend to a greater love of homelands than those who stayed behind. My own position is rather complex, in terms of roots and affiliations to space and place. But for now, in one of the few unspoiled Dorset villages I know and one which I didn't even know of until February this year, I am happy to allow the luxury of this "representation" to inhabit the air I breathe.
My Sister has just called from Palm Springs. She will be there until Christmas Eve, and then return to San Francisco for Christmas Day visiting close friends. This is part of her new Christmas beginning tradition. In our branch of the Fripp family, Christmas Day was held as especial. I would use the word "sacred" but, properly, it was a secular event within the family which, in its secular way, we held sacred.
Our parents, Arthur & Edie, always gave us a Christmas rich and vibrant in presents & good-feeling. Probably this was a reflection of the (financial) poverty which characterised both their own upbringings. Certainly, there were riches & vibrant good-feeling present in the life of a Welsh mining village during the miners' strikes of the 1920s, but Christmas presents were in short supply. Christmas also the only day of the year on which my Father could be guaranteed not to be irritable.
My Sister only missed one during our Parents' lifetime, when she first moved to America in 1965. I only missed one, when I was in New York in 1977 (which I spent with Eno). Mother's mother, Nans (Gladys Louise Green), was also part of our celebrations until the mid 1970s, when she became a resident at a nursing home in Wales. All these Christmases we shared as a family. Our Father died in 1984, but in 1985 Toyah joined the Fripp family Christmas. Reciprocally, this included us in the Willcox family Christmases, a considerable plus.
In the conventional Fripp Christmas, present-opening was conducted one present at a time. Everyone else participated in the excitement of a gift being removed from its wrapping and being displayed, the moment savoured to its uttermost and then further. After all, this wasn't going to happen for another year. In her later years Nans, by then a developed octogenerian, wasn't fully able to see the gift, or its opening, or its display (the cataracts weren't removed from her eyes until she moved to the nursing home). But the simple fact of not being able to see very well was no reason to debar her from being fully involved. "What do you think of that, Nans?" we'd ask, and be answered by a shout of "Booful! It's booful!". American, Argentinian, German & other foreign persons, generous enough to take an interest in this diary, may need to be informed that "booful" is the phonetic rendition of "beautiful" in the Welsh dialect of our maternal grandmother.
In the conventional Willcox Christmas, when the time for present opening is announced, all Willcoxes attack their presents simultaneously while visiting Fripps look on, bemused.
In my Mother's lifetime, we celebrated Christmas Day at Edie's, and then went to Toyah's sister Nicky for Boxing Day. Nicky treated Patricia & myself to an extra-wonderful Christmas in 1993, the year we lost Edie. We had become ophans and were still grieving. Subsequently, Patricia & I agreed and accepted that without Arthur & Edie the nature of our Christmases had changed. No longer was there quite the same need, or quality, as when the siblings were physically present in the same space as their parent/s to acknowledge and share in being a family.
Toyah usually works over the Christmas season and only has Christmas Day free, which I wish to share with her to the full. So, my Sister's new traditional & non-Dickensian Christmas involves her in going to her favourite spa in Palm Springs, returning home for Christmas Day with close friends, and (depending on specifics) sometimes coming to England to visit for the New Year. This gives her the chance of hissing baddies and cheering for the goodies, at whichever production Toyah is appearing in. This New Year Sister is staying in America so instead the Fripp Kids have celebrated Thanksgiving and will meet again in Nashvile during January.
Today is cold and icy in Dorset. David Singleton visited for lunch in the pub opposite, to bring me up to speed on matters Disciplinarian. In return I played him the Crimson cd in its latest form. David's comment: "This is a band which is happy with its past and future".
Flying on Friday was not great: snow & ice in Chicago the cause. An American Airlines 'plane slid off the runway and blocked all outgoing flights, which delayed the United flight to Nashville & all the other spokes to the Chicago hub. More confusions & delays in Chicago but - hey! - I got to London only two hours late & then drove to Dorset. Managed to stay awake until 21.30, although well-addled, and then slept for 14 hours until just before David arrived for lunch.
Anyone familiar with a traditional "nice hice" in England is also well aware that those who live in them generally shiver. This is not my own notion of exercise and, in the fullness of time, I will address by such expedients as double glazing, modern radiators, etc. For now, it's not hot but it is booful. And shivering is one form of exercising.
23.35
Toyah is at Ringwood: I've called her mobile to warn her that the roads are freezing. After the earlier diary entry I popped over to the village pub for a pot of Earl Grey tea. What a treat to have a pub of this quality within a 30 second walk. The barboy (i.e. the youngest of the team) was quite excited: Neil Tennant was in for lunch en route to the West Country. Apparently, he was in the front window as David & I enjoyed lunch in the darker regions.
"Understanding changes what we understand."
