What I did on my Christmas holiday

Hello ElJay! Remember me?

The Christmas holidays went well, for the most part. Flying RyanAir is certainly an interesting experience, but I will say one thing, Priority Boarding is worth the extra £5 per flight. I have never before sat in the second row in an airplane.
Of course, the flight is now only half the journey, seeing as Ryan lands in Bremen and there is an hour's train journey to my home town. My parents were picking me up (cue nervous tension as we were trying to catch the last train home; never again). On the train, I lightened the atmosphere with a round of drinks from miniature bottles I picked up in Stansted (Whiskey for dad, Gin for mum and myself). From then on, my time at home was good - a quiet but happy Christmas, lots of good food and wine - mum surprised me by us having one of my favourite dishes on Boxing Day, and one I cannot get in the UK - white asparagus with potatoes, smoked ham (the German kind), and Hollandaise. Nom. So it's not traditional, but what the hey. Besides, there was tradition enough - Christmas cookies, the tree, the Christmas Eve fish and potato salad, the Christmas Day roast birds, red cabbage and dumplings, and all the rest. There were presents, too, of course, like theatre tickets and a new pair of glasses (which were needed, I wore my last pair for a good 10 years). Mum and I played cards at breakfast, dad and I sat mucking around on various computers, we all met in the evening for a nightcap, and I hit my head twice while waking up in the night because I'm not used to the slanted roof over the bed anymore.

Mum and I went to see "Anything Goes" at the theatre where I spent so many happy hours. It is of course unrecogniseable; they have renovated the lobby both inside and out. But once the bum's on the seat and the lights go down, it's that same old happy feeling. The production was a joy to watch, too, all glitter and tap-dancing and good music and a story of mistaken identity that would rival Shakespeare.

I spent some time looking through my old possessions (most of which I haven't missed, except for my vinyl), and very little time on the computer (partly because the computer is a rather old snail and mostly because I had other things to do). Mum and I went shopping (oh I like to be in a place where clothes off the rack fit, thank you, C&A), which meant I came home with a rather fuller suitcase than I brought with me; luckily sweaters, while bulky, don't weigh so much.

I met friends, some of whom I only see on New Year's Eve, who were happy to see me and I them. We shared stories (and songs, since half my ex-band was there, though I probably will never get the gummi bear song out of my head), and we stood outside around a brazier even though it was warm, and watched the fireworks (and the police arriving on the opposite side of the street where some drunken revelers let off the rockets from their hand and, allegedly, mouths. Hooray for the Darwin Awards.)

New Year's Day was spent with a lot of classical music (after sleeping in a little). All the New Year's Concerts on TV (Vienna, of course, and my personal TV highlight, Venice), and in the afternoon, after some preparatory packing, the traditional concert mum and I go to. The opening piece was the Overture to Candide by Leonard Bernstein, and I loved every second of that. Not that the other pieces were bad, but this one has so many memories attached to it (I think I saw that particular production of our theatre about 16, 17 times).

On the 2nd of January, my flight back to Blighty beckoned. For some reason totally unknown to me, my dad decided to act like an idiot that day (in a manner familiar to me, sad to say, but something I haven't seen in quite some time; he was all happiness the days before). And when I say "act like an idiot", I mean it - the result was me (and mum) in tears on the train station, while we were all waiting for the train to take us to Bremen, while he was looking like he swallowed a thundercloud. It was so bad that, in the heat of the moment in a shouting match between me and him a few minutes earlier, I actually called him an ass ("Arschloch" to us Germans). You know me. It takes quite a bit of doing for me to cuss out someone, least of all my parents. But here we were, at the train station, on my last day in Germany before going back, and he just acts rude and childish and shouts for me to "go away" and spoils not only that day, but casts a pallor over the whole Christmas vacation.
Saying goodbye at the airport I was lucky to get a handshake and a "The ass is going home now". I countered with, "Good, maybe then my father will come back." We haven't spoken since. Mum and he made up, of course, but for once in my life, I would like an apology for the way he behaved, and then I will apologise for the ass.
Doesn't mean I'm not saddened by the situation, doesn't mean I haven't dreamed of this for almost every night since I got back.

Mum calls me every evening, for our daily five-minute chat, something we started doing in mid-October (a German TV channel is showing a daily double bill of Star Trek (TOS) episodes, which they watch, and after it's finished she calls me and tells me two little details of the story and of course I immediately know which episode it is. Heck, today she said something about huge white apes and I instantly knew it was a Mugato. Once a geek, always a geek). I know all is well there, and I am glad.

The funny thing is, roundabout November-ish I was wondering when this flat of mine in BiSto would finally stop feeling like a flat I live in and start feeling like home. Well, coming back from the holidays, seeing all my stuff in my flat and looking forward to start digging in my allotment, I really felt like I was coming home.

So now, onward and upward, the year is still young. Who knows what 2012 will bring.