Halloween costume tips for the fashion aware

There's been an uptick in visits to the site lately on the search term - "how to dress like a terrorist". I wondered what that was all about, but then I remembered it was Halloween. Really people, the 29th is waaaay too late to be planning a great costume, but I'll help if I can.

Here at The Vol Abroad blog, we love to give fashion tips - but sadly the post people are landing on may be disappointing. It describes the time that my husband was stopped and searched under the prevention of terrorism act.

If you're curious, here's what he was wearing:

He took a record of my physical appearance. I'm an IC1 Male (white male), my height and described my clothing which was a blue shirt, dress trousers and black shoes. Which sounded quite smart, so I was glad I had dressed decently.

I'm sure you've all got something like that in your wardrobes. But if you find that a bit stifling for a festive occasion, you can always wear what the 7/7 bombers wore on their scouting trip of the capital. Thanks to CCTV and the BBC, you now know that ball caps, t-shirts, jeans and combat trousers are just the thing. Note well, the New York Yankees insignia. The NY theme comes up again just two weeks later with the unsuccessful 21/7 bombers. (Image from the Daily Mail)




I hope y'all find that helpful. Basically, you can pretty much wear whatever on a day out of mass murder. But I'd definitely go with the ball cap. Four out of seven terrorists agree.

Happy Independence Day

Being an American in Britain on the 4th of July is a very strange thing. Celebrating Independence Day in the land of our former colonial masters is a little like celebrating the anniversary of a divorce in your ex-in-laws' beach house. You can still have a good time, but you're always aware.

What can Brits do to ease the awkwardness and ensure a Happy Fourth?

• no snarky comments about impertinent colonists
• no jibes about how we've made a mess of our independence - especially over the last eight years or so
• no general anti-Americanism (yes, I know it's hard)
• sparklers should be on sale at every corner store
• bring us a brownie
• a paid day off work would be nice

and last but not least....

• tax free tea all day
  

Happy (late) (British) Veteran's Day

Happy Veteran's Day.

In Britain.

Yesterday.

Yes, I let it pass unremarked, but so too did the rest of the country. Apparently. My British colleagues had no idea.

It's a new thing here. And I have to say it's much needed. Remembrance Sunday is a big thing here, but technically you have to be dead to be honoured - which takes a little bit of the fun out of it. Veterans - until a couple of years ago - had no official celebration.

I'm not a big fan of Gordon Brown, but good for him for bringing this in.

So, let me say - thanks to all the British Veterans.

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Technically the Vol-in-Law qualifies as a British veteran, given his 14 months or so in the British Territorial Army (reserves). I think he was mostly in it for the subsidised beer, though.

Vacation

I want to go on vacation. Some place warm and full of light. With lots of interesting things to photograph. And babysitters galore.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year - I hope every day next year is lucky for you.

And for those not in the know - black eyed pea eatin' for us is like dram drinking or first footing for the Scots.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Things I'll never do

Did I ever tell you about how I used to sell Christmas trees? I don't think I have. Anyway, I did. When I worked at a garden center in Knoxville we sold Christmas trees, at Christmas obviously. Mostly it was pretty good fun. The smell of the firs and spruces. Using a chainsaw to put a fresh cut on a Christmas tree. Chainsaws are fun.

Mostly it was fun. But sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes people weren't as nice as they could have been. Like the guy who threatened his wife because she ordered a big ass live blue spruce for their entry foyer and he was gonna pop her if it scratched the marble tiles. (It was a questionable choice of tree, but hardly an excuse for domestic violence)

Another time, I saw this mom tell her kid who was - I don't know - seven? - that he could pick out any tree in the lot. He was a thoughtful little guy and he wandered amongst the trees and picked one out. It was a good tree. Even, full, of a harmonious conical shape, nice good limb development for optimal ornament hang-age. Well, I can't remember, but I do remember being pretty impressed with his choice. On the other hand, we didn't have many duff trees.

All the trees were hung up with twine from the marquis frame, so the kid pointed out his tree and Bruce (a co-worker) and I cut down the tree and started to take it over for the fresh cut to the base. Now once we make that fresh cut, you have to buy that tree - that's the rule. But mom comes out and directs dad and kid inside to look at the poinsettias - and tells us that she really wants this other tree instead.

The tree is really no better, really not that much different. But mom's the one with the money, so we do what she wants and we don't say anything.

Bruce and I feel bad about it, so we work quick. Normally the fresh cut and the baling will be more or less a one person job, but we worked together so that we could get that tree baled up and tied onto the roof of their car before the kid comes back out again.

We were just tying the last knots on the luggage rack when the kid comes up to us and says, in a quiet voice. "That's not my tree, is it?" He seemed more resigned than upset. We could have lied - cheerfully. We could have. But something about the way he said it - we just looked at each other and said "No, it's not." And the kid was not surprised, it clearly wasn't the first time something like this had happened.

Anyway, I swore when I had a kid, this would be something I'd never do. If it mattered that much to me, I wouldn't offer a choice. Cause a kid can tell his own tree even baled up and tied to the roof of a car.

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Chris is wrestling with the things he said he'd never do as a parent. Like use the tv as a mollifier. I think I said something like that, too. Plus we agreed we'd stop swearing. Well, that hasn't happened. Never say never. But I'm still sticking with my promise not to pull a stunt like the Christmas tree swap.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers, wherever you are. We're fixing up a turkey day repast. Things are simmering as I type. My dad is here and I reckon we'll have a wonderful meal in about 90 minutes. Giving myself the excuse of the baby, I bought prepared mash and an "easy cook" turkey joint and gravy in a carton. The cornbread dressing, pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce are all made from scratch.

By the way, if you've never made cranberry sauce from scratch it couldn't be easier or more delicious. Just plunk the berries and some water and some sugar adjudged to your taste* in a pot and simmer until all the berries have popped plus a couple minutes little longer. You don't even have to stir it more than once or twice. Let cool and serve.

Thanks again to Newscoma and Genderist for the dressing recipe. (In the comments of this post).

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*Quite a lot of sugar is required even to get a tart sauce

Happy Run-up-to-Christmas Day

By 4pm yesterday, I had bought no Halloween candy. Last year, we got no trick or treaters and I had to bring the candy in to my work (and eat a fair bit of it myself). But in a last minute glow of Horror Holiday nostalgia I rushed to the local grocery store to find the shelves picked nearly bare. I managed to find some Werther's originals and some kind of strange candy stick thing in boxes, probably the politically correct offspring of candy cigarettes.

I also checked the "seasonal aisle" to see if I could find anything to top up Cletus's outfit. Nope. Where accessories had been reasonably well stocked only days before, there were only a few vials of fake blood and some tatty witches hats. An Arabic speaking father and daughter where tearing through the remnants in search of costuming for a little boy and they sought my help. I pointed to some novelty skull spectacles in a child's size and he seemed happy enough with that, but the distressed daughter was pointing to the spot where £1.50 ($3) capes used to sit.

On the way home I noticed two jack-o-lanterns on my street. Two more than I had ever spotted before. And it warmed the cockles of my halloween heart.

We had two sets of trick-or-treaters - though I did have to go out for a while during peak trick-or-treating time, so we might have had more. At any rate, I did give away some candy - although we do have an awful lot of Werther's original.

Anyway, despite much sneering for many years by the English about this "American" holiday, they finally seem to be taking to it. I've always wondered why folks haven't taken to it more - I mean c'mon, dressing up and free candy. What's not to like? Who doesn't have room on their calendar for an extra fun holiday?

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And as we all know, Halloween is no longer All Saint's Eve, but the Run-up-to-Christmas eve. And in recent years it marks the beginning of the "War on Christmas", too. And here's the first story in the gruesome advent calendar. Because this story appears in The Daily Mail - it's hard to tell exactly what the truth is. They distort everything to make it "political correctness gone mad" - I know this because this happened to a project I worked on.

But it appears that a favorite Labour think-tank, the IPPR is about to issue a report calling on us to "downgrade" Christmas. Leaked recommendations include:

"If we are going to continue as a nation to mark Christmas - and it would be very hard to expunge it from our national life even if we wanted to - then public organisations should mark other religious festivals too. We can no longer define ourselves as a Christian nation, nor an especially religious one in any sense.

Britain may no longer be particularly religious, but this country is still ethnically and culturally Christian to a large degree. And folks still love their Christmas.

I'm all for celebrating other holidays - as long as they're about fun and feasting and not scourging and fasting. But I don't see why we need to downgrade any existing holidays to do so.

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Slight digression:

Another finding of the IPPR report was that the state should make a bigger deal of the birth registration.

The system in which parents are required to register a new baby at a register office is dismissed as "purely bureaucratic". The occasion should be transformed into a "public rite", using citizenship ceremonies for immigrants as a model, the report says. "Parents, their friends and family and the state [would] agree to work in partnership to support and bring up their child."

Hell, NO! I'm not working in partnership with the state to bring up my child.

And anyway, this shows a leaning toward a particular ethno-religious tradition - infant baptism. I guess there are parallels with some other religions, too - the Bris for Jewish boys and I think there's some kind of thanksgiving sacrifice traditional made for Muslim children (two lambs for a boy, one for a girl, if I recall correctly). But in my religious tradition - hard core Protestantism - we don't hold with such things.

And besides, the report authors (two men) have clearly never had a c-section. You have to register the birth within six weeks - but at that point I couldn't even get myself down to the town hall never mind organise some stupid statist ceremony.

Trickertreat

I'm sorry I missed this she first posted it. Here's Ms Coble's conundrum. She has some spare Bibles. I'm gathering maybe she has quite a few spare Bibles. She's wondering if she should give them out to trick-or-treaters on Halloween.

I think I would have been coolly indifferent if I'd gotten a Bible in my treat bag. I'd have been OK with it if there'd been a mini Snickers bar that came with it.

Of course, I didn't need any Bibles growing up. I had access to plenty. Candy was a rarer treat.

But it's kind of a neat idea. Giving away surplus items at Halloween. I did once give away a ray gun that I had used as a Halloween costume prop to a trick-or-treater because I had no candy. He was really excited. It's too bad we just gave dropped off a bunch of books at charity shop only yesterday. We could have left a stack by the door.

Sorry, kids - no candy. But how 'bout this unreadable and depressing tome: The Losing Battle with Islam. All out of chocolate, but here's a John Irving novel - sorry, it's not one of the better known ones. Wild Swans is good, if a bit depressing. Take this Harlequin romance, when I was 12 I found them quite exciting. You might like this pulp fiction in Spanish that I thought I could use to improve my foreign language skills but languished unloved on my shelves for years.

And if we had a mad rush, I could give away pairs of shoes I no longer like and maybe scarfs or old sweaters.

Oh yes, Halloween could take on whole new dimensions.

We make a pilgrimage

I've always wanted to go to Canterbury Cathedral, ever since I read the Canterbury Tales or heard about the famous Murder in the Cathedral. I'd been to Canterbury once before - but that was to attend a conference on crime and law enforcement* and I didn't get a chance to take in the sights.

So for our brief little vacation, we decided to head to Canterbury as well as to the zoo.

Seaside resort town of Hythe
We stayed in the seaside town of Hythe rather than in Canterbury itself simply because I thought sea side walks might be calming for baby, and it turns out that Hythe is kind of an interesting town in itself. It was one of the Cinque ports (whatever that was) and was also a garrison town for many years. It boasts a military canal running through the middle of town - it was apparently built to thwart a French attack, but apparently now it's used for a biennial floating parade called the Venetian fete, which actually looks pretty fun.

Dem bones
Hythe also boasts England's largest ossuary (there are, apparently, only two). I had visions of visiting the ossuary and taking plenty of creepy photos with Cletus in front of piles of skulls so that in his degenerate teen years he could look back on such a snap and credit us with a smidgeon of cool. But St Leonard's Parish church and its crypt (where the bones are held) close between 12 and 2. We arrived just in time to see the vicar closing up and crossing the road to his house for lunch. As we stopped on our way out of town, I managed a mere glimpse of the skulls through the window.




The Cathedral
So onwards to Canterbury, where it is difficult to park. And it is even harder to park with a screaming baby. But most things are more difficult with a screaming baby as we've discovered. However, even so, it probably wasn't as hard as approaching the cathedral on your knees as many pilgrims did.

But Cletus was good as gold in the cathedral. Given that he is the child of two heatherns, I was amazed that he uttered not a peep when one of the cathedral clergy led worshippers (one or two) and tourists (many, many) in prayer. He was far better behaved than the gaggle of Italian teenagers who marched through proceedings with shrieks and giggles.

The cathedral is pretty fantastic. I can't say it's the most impressive one I've seen (St Mark's in Venice is pretty amazing), but it is absolutely grand in scale. It's imposing and I was certainly aware of its historical significance, but strangely I didn't feel in awe of the atmosphere as one often can in places of pilgrimage.


Creepy crosses marking the spot of Thomas Becket's murder in the Cathedral


Tomb of the Black Prince


Interior of the cathedral


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*I got the coolest name tag at that conference it said "Vol Abroad: The future of policing" which I kept, of course.

Put me in the zoo

Last year on our vacation to Normandy and Brittany, we visited Branfrere animal park where we saw (and petted) wallabies amongst other animaux.

Although our holiday this year was was but three days and two nights, we thought we'd take in a nice big zoo. The Port Lympne Zoo looked pretty good, although had I seen a topo map of the place I'm sure we would have avoided it.

And the philosophy of the park was quite different. At Branfere - the animals were on show - but on their own little islands - giving them the illusion of freedom and us the illusion of proximity. And indeed many animals were allowed to roam free around the park. At the Port Lympne ticket booth we were warned that it wasn't a zoo, but rather a park dedicated to conservation, where the animals really do come first. And that meant that they kept the night shelters open during the day and that the enclosures were really big (and as turns out full of weeds) which meant that it might require patience to see the animals.

If we hadn't already stood in line for nearly an hour just to buy our tickets, I might have turned around.

When I pay a bunch of money to go into a zoo, I expect to see some animals. And they should either be available for petting or feeding or they should do some funny tricks.

Many of the cages at Port Lympne appeared to be empty. Animals were either hiding or sleeping in others - and given that the enclosures were so big - that meant that there was a heckuva lotta walking between boring animal displays. And given the steepness of many of the paths and us pushing a stroller full of baby and baby accessories, it was a lot of work to catch a glimpse of a "small cat" that looked suspiciously like the neighborhood tabby.

But they did actually have some cool animals:

We saw baby lions


gorillas


monkeys



(our own little ginger monkey?)

red pandas


and rhinos

Beside the sea side

We took a quick trip down to the sea side and to see some sights, just a short break - two nights away.





It was our first vacation with the Baby Cletus.

Every experience is a learning experience.

Actually, he was pretty good. We're pretty tired - more tomorrow.

Vacation, all I ever wanted

SAD. I think maybe I've got SAD. That's the good ol' seasonal affective disorder caused by lack of daylight. Only in Britain could one get SAD in the summer.

It's dreary here. Oh, sure - there have been the occasional glimmers of sunlight (last week wasn't bad). But summer has largely been a washout. For many people, a complete washout - i.e. their homes and everything. All I've lost is a tomato crop. Vine rot. Blecchh.

I'm not the only one feeling the cool. Apparently, there's been a rush on last minute vacations to...wherever there might be a glimmer of sun. Carbon footprint and environmental protesters be damned, people are crawling over each other to get off this sodden, gray island.

Us. Not so much with the foreign vacation plans. I haven't even taken Cletus north of the river yet. Plus travel docs, he doesn't have any. But I wouldn't mind a little time in the sun.

Happy Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day in America.

It's not the same day as it is in the UK. Back when I first came over - I was dutiful about buying a Mother's Day card in March (the British time) and sometimes I even remembered to actually send it to VolMom at the right time.

Anyway, Happy Mother's Day Vol-Mom. Now, I'll just blog a Happy Mother's Day wish.

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Back in March, during the British Mother's Day time - I asked the Vol-in-Law what he was going to get me on behalf of Cletus or in honor of the fact I was carrying his child.

He said "Well, why should I get you anything for Mother's Day? You're not a mother yet. Let's see how you get on and maybe you'll get something next year."

The ViL's not really good at gift giving - so I wasn't really expecting anything. I'm certainly not expecting anything today - since he's not even American. He did wish me a happy mother's day, though.

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One of VolMom's many talents is flower arranging. I'm not so good at that - and I don't usually bother with cut flowers. But I saw these Sweet William and snap dragons today - going fairly cheap - so made up a bouquet.

So here's a virtual bouquet for VolMom.



And if you get bored of my Mother's Day thoughts - check out this list of women bloggers in Tennessee in honor of the day - or the Mother's Day wishes to the mom bloggers of Nashville is Talking.

Happy Late Valentine's Day

The Vol-in-Law apparently wrote in his pocket calendar "Flowers for VA" in the little slot for 14 February. (Hmmm...maybe I should check that out - since I've never had flowers from him before - except the time he retrieved a fresh bouquet from the gutter) But he decided not to buy me any when I proposed that we attend one of the RHS London flower shows. Attending the show, looking at the exhibits and not complaining or getting antsy would be his gift to me.

On the way in, we ran into one of our fellow Tooting constituents who had been at the Tooting open primary the night before. We talked about the result and how pleased we were with our new candidate Mark Clarke. She also regretted not bringing her camera to the show. It was lovely - with all the early spring bulbs - the snowdrops, early narcissus, crocus and iris reticulata. I did bring my camera.



More photos here

And the ViL was good - and I poked around the flowers as long as I wanted and I bought some vegetable seed for the ex-pond including a heritage variety of Tennessee tomatoes called Cherokee Purple (Do any readers know this variety?) But we didn't buy any flowers. I was awful tempted by the double hellebores (the red speckled flowers above ) - but wasn't sure I wanted to pay £15 (almost $30) for one spriggly plant - plus we still had some things to do and I didn't want to be dragging expensive, spriggling flowers through town in the rush hour. Although I would have bought these lovely orange crocus if I'd seen them for sale.




We did stop on the way home at our local flower and pet shop and bought some primrose, which we can enjoy throughout the end of winter and early spring.

Happy Boxing Day

Today is Boxing Day - a peculiarly English holiday which has spread as far as Wales. This was the servants' Christmas - if my understanding of the holiday is correct. In years past, stores were shut up tighter than a drum on Boxing Day just as they would be on Christmas Day. But like their American cousins, retailers now see the day after Christmas as a grand, grand day to fling open their stores in a bacchanalia of consumerism.

I succombed and dragged the Vol-in-Law out to a PC store to look at super cheap laptops. (Yeah, turns out there were only 10 per store and they were long, long gone). The ViL was a little hungover from our Christmas with a friend up the road - and did not fulfill his supporting shopper role as well as he might have. The parking lot was full and full of enraged customers. Most people just glared at one another, but one fellow shared with me the traditional post-Christmas parking hand gestures. So full of holiday cheer we escalated to exchanging the traditional day-after-Christmas parking greeting of "Fuck You". I however, was restrained, and did not actually roll down the window.

We left without making a significant purchase and returned home to paint our Christmas toys. VolMom sent us some paint-your-own garden gnomes. The Vol-in-Law was less than thrilled as he is stridently anti-yard art. I'm sure he views this as a betrayal from his mother-in-law, as my mom has always told him to take care of me, but never to let me fill the garden with tacky statuary - as to tell the truth, would be my wont.


My (unfinished) gnome is on the left, the Vol-in-Law's is on the right and the camel - once filled with oasis and used for a florist's bouquet is used for paintbrush water.




The ViL's gnome on its own.



And released into its new home - a very, very dark corner of our garden.

Merry effin Christmas

I've been wished Merry Christmas at a number of establishments in London, which is a little unusual since the British way of saying it is "Happy Christmas". I don't think "Happy Christmas" is wrong, but somehow to me it takes away the specialness of Christmas, you know it's Happy Birthday, Happy Valentine's Day, Happy President's Day...so why not have one holiday with a slightly different kind of joy?

Since the UK is about a year behind America in a number of social trends, I think the whole counter-revolution to the "war on Christmas" has finally drifted across the pond. Folks weren't that bothered about it before, but now they kinda are. It's weird. Sure there were the rabid commies in Birmingham who had "Winterval" - but if memory serves that was in January, so why not. And last year a neighbouring borough - Lambeth - erected "holiday" lights instead of Christmas lights - and after some opprobrium changed them back to Christmas lights without switching a single extension cord.

My council which is cheap, cheap, cheap value-for-money, as far as I can tell, leaves the lights up all year - saving money on labor and storage. The lights are a kind of non-distinguisable geometric pattern - and they become different lights at different holidays. Happy Diwali, Happy Eid, Happy Christmas - the lights change for the dates (no Happy Hannukah, I'm afraid - according to the last census there are more Americans living in my neighborhood than Jewish people - hmm, maybe they should switch them on for 4th of July!!). And not only that, but if you - as a merchant - would like some festive (Christmas, Diwali, Eid) lights in front of your store - then you gots to pony up the dough. The merchants on my street are of different faiths, but almost all of them display a Christmas greeting in their windows, which I think they also get from the council. Happy Christmas and Prosperous New Year it says. Most of them do a Happy Easter poster, too.

My work issues "Season's Greetings" to all of our clients, stakeholders and paymasters, but then again we are a Godless organisation full of former Communists and Labour party activists. As I blogged before, my coworkers have taken to not distributing Christmas cards - but instead emails with a salutation of "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" are circulated amongst comrades colleagues with a holier-than-thou message about making a contribution to some worthy [secular] cause in lieu of Christmas cards.

I joined the trend, since I'm lazy as all get-out. But I took particular delight in giving to the Salvation Army - you could hardly give to a more overtly Christian charity - unless maybe I'd given money to Jay Sekulow's (Pat Robertson's fave-lawyer) "Christian" defense fund. But a) I would never give money to those raving crackpots and b) my British colleagues might not get it. And I did wish folks a Merry Christmas - plus a Season's Greetings, but that was ironically.

Last year we were in Tennessee for Christmas, and folks were all up in arms. I don't think I heard a single "Happy Holidays". At Dollywood there were militantly "Merry Christmas" - the ticket lady wished us a Merry Christmas and then gave us a glinty stare until we echoed the salutation. The driver of the train of golf carts which delivered us to our area of the parking lot lectured us on the importance of saying "Merry Christmas" instead of "Season's Greetings", which I had to say was a little less than merry. Apparently, the war on Christmas never made it to East Tennessee, but that didn't stop the locals of taking up arms in preparation. All that lecturing and glaring kinda took a bit of the joy out of the season for me.

The only person I met in Knoxville retail last year who insisted on Happy Holidays was my brother. According to him, he waited until he received a salutation from the Customer - and if it were Merry Christmas then he'd reply with a jovial "Happy Holidays" and a smirky smile.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday, Vol-in-Law!

I've taken the day off work to cater to my husband's every whim (well, not really...). We're first off to our local caf, the greasy spoon where we'll have eggs cooked up by a Polish short order cook. We'll peruse the cafe's collection of tabloid "Red Tops", the Sun, the Mirror, the Express and Star while we eat - taking in a collection of photos of topless women (I shall just skim past that), celebrity gossip and tragi-comic tales of the lives of the British underclass.

Then we're off for a walk in Richmond Deer Park. It's the Vol-in-Law's favourite place to go in London. It should be a lovely walk. It's foggy and cold this morning. I can't remember such fog in the time I've lived in London - it's almost like the movies - a thick inversion, a real pea-souper. To be fair, it's not quite as thick and cloying as the old fogs, those fogs that killed, a combination of natural fog and thick black domestic coal smoke, inner-city power station smog and manufacturing emissions, but I've been waiting a long time to be able to say "a real pea-souper", so I will.

We'll come back home to have some ready-made lasagna I bought in moment of madness (I don't normally do that kind of thing) and salad with The Texan. That will be followed by my very own apple-spice cake, still warm from the oven, baked at the ViL's request. It requires buttermilk which I had to buy from the weird French-Muslim halal butcher that's opened up recently in our neighbourhood.

Happy Birthday, Vol-in-Law

A Christmas Carol

We heard the letterbox snap Sunday morning and found an invitation to attend a carol service this evening on our front mat.

Personally, I'm a fan of attending the big, big carol services - like the one at St Paul's Cathedral. Not only is it a pretty good show, but normal admission to the cathedral is around £6 (that's almost $12 these days) - and the fee is waived if you're attending a service. But the Vol-in-Law is not keen as he feels he's being treated "like a piece of meat", which I grant is not a positive feature in a religious ceremony. Apparently, the big shows - like the one at St Paul's or Westminster Abbey are getting packed out these days - some hundreds of people were turned away from St Paul's Christmas Eve service last year (when we were in Lawrenceburg where we did not attend any church - although we did go to the Grand Ol' Opry on the 23d).

Since we didn't have any Christmas carol service planned we decided we'd go to the one where we'd been invited. Apparently it's our Church of England parish church - St Luke's - though I didn't have a clear idea where it was. Apparently the C of E has been guilty of gerrymandering their parishes in the past - and ours is oddly shaped and our house is tucked away in a distant cranny of the parish. Either that or they leafleted the wrong street.

The service was pretty good, the congregation was very friendly, and I knew most of the carols. The Vol-in-Law was impressed by the service, he was still talking about it the next day. But I guess there are some cross-cultural variations that make it hard for me to settle in at a carol service even after 10 years of living in England (not that I attended services every year). Here were some things that struck me:

• Why can't they just let us sing out of the hymnal? That way I could have written music. I'm not the best singer but I do read music and so if I don't know a song very well I can at least drag myself along by sight rather than blundering and guess work. In fact, does the Church of England have hymnals or did you put them away before inviting the unwashed public in to your carol service?
• Some British Christmas carols have extraneous notes - sort of like the "u" in colour. They aren't necessary and they'll always trip up the unsuspecting. For example, I know "Oh little town of Bethlehem" as a somber and simple song - it was presented to me as a song full of ladders and trills.
• Too much bloody organ for me. The organ filled up one of the "wings" of the church (sorry, I don't know the official name, but I didn't grow up in a church with wings) and the sound boomed throughout. What with the saxophone and the bass guitar and the flute and the really, really high-falutin' soprano in the choir - I could barely hear myself sing, never mind try to anticipate the next note in a carol arranged in a way I didn't expect. Maybe I had too much Church of Christ growing up - but didn't Paul say raise up your voices in praise - not raise up your monstrous organ and cacophonous band. (Gee, that's some imagery I didn't anticipate in a post about Christmas church services)
  
• English churches are cold, especially at Christmas time. Expect to sing in your coat. But parish churches are less cold than cathedrals. At my local parish church - I only needed my sweater.