It’s been a while since we had some 

Whimsy On A Wednesday!

So let’s get on with it, shall we?

Just before Christmas, I went to Whitby. A lovely little seaside town in North Yorkshire. It’s the first place Dracula visited when he came on holiday to England. How’s that for a bit of Bram Stokery?

I haven’t been to Whitby for quite some years but my best friend upped and left to live there so I see that as an excuse for at least four holidays a year in order to preserve our lasting friendship. It’s about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from me which I see as a long way and your average Texan sees as ‘about as far as he’d drive to lunch’ I try and remember that when I whine about distance but it’s about what you’re used to.  

Whitby is a seaside town that’s not just about summer on the beach; it has events going on all year round, making it very popular. I quite like the seaside in winter. I think it’s rather nice to have a brisk walk along the seafront wrapped up warm with a bag of fish and chips. 

Benedictine Ruins Your Lungs

The very famous steps to the top of the hill where the Abbey sits allow a good vantage point. If you can see anything by the time you get there and are not gasping for breath at the side of the ‘oh-so-convenient-cemetery’ One hundred and ninety-nine steps to your demise. Dear God. Thankfully there was a nice little bar at the top for medication. 

Before I left for my junket my mother told me that there was an interesting family buried up near the Abbey. “They were all born and died on the same day,” she said. I asked my friend who had not heard of such a thing. I assumed my mother was telling porkies or getting it confused with some vampire film she’d watched so I went and asked the lady selling bookmarks and postcards of the ruins.

“Oh yes!” she said. “Famous it is!” 

“Oh!” 

“Here, follow me. The gate is locked to where they are buried but I’ll open it up for you.” I looked at the Yorkshire woman with suspicion. Perhaps she was a bloodsucker.  Turns out that people in Yorkshire are just super friendly. 

She opened up the gate and there lay the tomb of the Huntrodds. Both were born on the same day, got married on the same day, and died 5 hours apart on the same day in their 80’s having born and raised 12 kids. There was a fated engagement if e’er there were one. 

From Darkness To Light

It’s challenging to go from Dracula to Santa and in my transition from darkness to light I landed somewhere around naughty elf. When I got home I noticed that my lovely neighbours had put a Christmas tree outside their front door. A living one in a pot. All nice and elegantly sophisticated. For now. 

I tried to steal it thinking it would be funny for them to wake up the next day and see it outside my house instead. However, it was so heavy I nearly caused myself a nasty accident trying to pick the bloody thing up. I daren’t drag it over. The last time I did that with a plant in a pot the whole thing exploded on the floor. I mean, there’s funny and there’s becoming a bad neighbour. I like to push boundaries but not the ones that go up to my property.  

The following weekend I started my own festive decorating which included hanging baubles outside on my naked cherry tree. From there I could spy the neighbour’s bare little fir and had an idea. I decided to add a few baubles to the next-door tree because I knew it would irritate.  The following day I added a Santa peg. And so it continued. Of course, they knew it was me but they couldn’t prove it. I would put on the Mission Impossible music and run outside with my decoration or goodies and pin it to their tree. Every night my neighbours would put up an Instagram post with a picture of what the naughty elf had left.

What had started out as something funny then became something I had to stick to every day because their kids absolutely loved it and believed a little elf was leaving chocolates and decorations. Talk about stress!

For Christmas Eve I wrote a poem about a naughty elf that lived in the base of the neighbour’s Christmas tree and left it rolled up inside a naughty elf toy that I put on top of the tree. I also left a goody bag, including a dressing gown and a sleeping bag for the naughty elf toy. I heard the children squealing with joy when they found it. Apparently, the little girl dressed the elf and put him in his sleeping bag and left him in the hallway between the bedrooms. On arriving home after a late night her older brother moved it to the bottom of her bed so when she awoke she thought the elf had moved there himself. How perfect is that?

Talk about making a rod for my own back. I am the perfect example of how naughty can turn nice.

Happy New Year Readers.