Of Nude Mice and Bacon Smells

Before I go into a customary nostalgic post as I am wont to do, let me first amuse you with my first ever entertaining search engine terms that have allowed people to find their way – somewhat strangely – to my blog.  The first one, What type of dog is that? It’s a tortoise I could just about accept but the somewhat more bizarre, proceedings of the second international workshop on nude mice, appeals to my sense of humour but did leave me wondering if that particular seeker of knowledge came away disappointed on not.

Anyway thank you for permitting me that small aside and now to move on with a Christmas post…The genesis of which came last year on a cold Christmas Eve, after returning from a frantic trip to find some elusive brown sugar.  I looked up into the clear black sky and saw the blinking lights of what I reckoned to be the last plane from Minneapolis to Portland, as I looked at it, I knew that I would write this post a year on.

I think it is the whole romanticism of travelling, getting somewhere special to enjoy this most wonderful time of year, which is all the more easier to imagine when one is where they wish to be.  I held those thoughts with me into the new year and the usual distractions life brings.  Yet the thoughts were rekindled by – oddly enough – the smell of bacon as I pottered through town looking for an excuse to have a quick pint.  In hindsight a good excuse would have been to write this post but I am not that clever so I settled for ‘my shoelace looks perilously close to coming undone so I better sit down with a pint and wait for it to loosen itself naturally’.

So, bacon. I always love that smell and I savour it like a rich and lonely man looks at his money but I got to thinking, as I do of the intrepid travellers at this time of year. So focused are they on the need to get somewhere, an almost obsession with beating the obligatory severe weather warnings, all to see loved ones that they don’t savour the finer things in life…like the scent of cooking piggy.  Everywhere is an atmosphere of apprehension but also camaraderie with fellow travellers, everybody holding in the concern of delays and cancellations to share a collective sigh of relief as things go right.

That everybody is absorbed in worry makes the getting home sweeter, perhaps though just for one year, if I have nowhere pressing to be,  I would like to experience it as Hollywood portrays it.  In which everything turns out happily even if that means having to have a turkey sandwich in an airport or allowing the kindness of strangers to either take me in or help me to my destination.

Sentimentalism aside, this post was a whole lot better in my head last year, I should have tried to write it down, but there is always next year.  As for this, I shall be around all of your blogs tomorrow morning as time is against me today but in the meantime I shall wish you an excellent and merry Christmas and that you all make it safely to your destinations.