The Weather

Coming home for Wassailing was quite momentous - aside from the hundreds of quid I spent getting here. Last year I left Blighty on Wassail night, so coming back for this year's celebration should (you'd imagine) be the chance for some introspective and insightful words about how I have trundled my way through the dozen months in between. (What I've learned, how I've grown, n'all that.) But that doesn't come easily to me, so instead I'd like to talk about the weather.

I woke up this morning to find the world covered in a thick blanket of snow. I won't describe it - just try to imagine everything covered in a thick, white, cold blanket and you'll get the idea. I was very excited - it's the first proper snow we've had in this part of England since the early eighties; when Dad used to tie our sledges to the back of his car and drag us round the lesser-used lanes of the Cotswolds.

It's a shame really - for the past few weeks the weather has been unseasonably warm. The birds have been flying around collecting twigs for nests, squirrels have been emerging from their winter hidey-holes and I've even seen a couple of butterflies. Of course, they're all buggered now, poor sods. Apart from the magpies that is. Last year they nested in a birch tree by the tortoise enclosure, so Dad poked their nest out with a stick (for those who don't know - they are terrible predators of song birds). But now they seem to have learned - they're building their nest at the very top of the tallest poplar tree in the garden. But they'll probably be buggered too after this weather.

The weather on Wassailing night was very pleasant. It was the middle of an English January in the middle of the night, but we all sat outside quite happily. I suppose we all had our cider anoraks on to keep us warm. For those who don't know; Wassailing is about opening a new barrel of cider and then thanking the trees for their bounty. It's a complex ritual, involving several guns, some toast and a virgin. It all went very well, and I have high hopes for next year's apple crop.

My last week in Bogota was unusually warm. Even though I'd just come back from the Caribbean coast I still managed to get sunburnt on the few occasions I left the house. It was a particularly pleasant night when I went to a wedding with Dodgy Dave, from Hitchen. We arrived about three minutes late, and as English people we were worried about being tardy. As we walked in Dave was approached by a stunning bridesmaid in a scarlet dress who told him he was was best man. "Why did nobody tell me?" he asked. She giggled and pinned a rose to his chest.

Later in the evening I won my first ever dancing contest. All the single men at the wedding had to grab a girl and shake their stuff in front of a crowd of baying aunties. I shook mine, and by common consensus my ridiculous wiggling won me the bride's girdle. I was genuinely shocked - all the other fellas were doing all sorts of salsa things and I was just being very silly. But the aunties had their way and I was victorious.

After the wedding I headed on to a friend's club where he was celebrating David Bowie's birthday. I milled around for a while making disparaging remarks about boss-eyed paltroons before going home.

Next thing I remember I was at an airport near New York, and it was snowing. Nothing like British snow, of course, but I appreciated the effort.

And now I'm in writing this in the study of The Croft. It's a good place to pretend to be an explorer. As I look around me I see Nubian swords, ostrich eggs, dried starfish, Ethiopian birthing stools, stuffed birds and one of those fish that sing 'Take Me to the River' when you bark at it. Oh, there it goes again.