Crack of dawn Christmas decorations
Jude and I go and get the christmas greenery in the very early morning and have a wonderful time.
Jude and I go and get the christmas greenery in the very early morning and have a wonderful time. The last entry was really a bit glum which is not in the Christmas spirit, so will endevour to be much more cheerful this time. This is easier as Jude and I ended up having a very wonderful and rather magical very early Friday morning.
I left here after the tasting on Thursday and got home at about 1am. Jude had been out for a drink with Olly (our Clapham manager) and still wasn’t home, so I was expecting the worst. He finally got back at about 2am and there were no surprises. He was indeed rather drunk. Jude is a lovely drunk actually, if he has not had so much that he passes the line of decorum. Crossing that line leads to weeks of non-communication and all round misery but much as I do not condone any sort of flagrant drunkenness, there are levels with him that are not too bad. The level he was at on Thursday was ‘loving and loquacious’ which is really not too bad at all. I was feeling really tired and not entirely in the mood for an endless monologue but when the gist of it was that we should not be sad anymore, things would get better, Green and Blue was fabulous and would survive and that he loved me, Olly, his job and most of the people he had met that evening very much, I could not really begrudge it. I did however beg him to stop at about 2.30am, reminding him that I really needed to go to sleep as I had to be up disgustingly early to go to the market for Christmas greenery.
‘Oh, don’t worry about it baby’, he slurred airily, ‘I’ll get on the night bus now and go. You go and get some sleep’.
I raised my eyebrows pityingly and brushed this off, repeating that we both really needed to go to sleep. He was insistent though and launched into a rambling explanation of a bus route from Queens Park to New Convent Garden in the early hours when I suddenly realised that perhaps this was not a bad idea. Jude weaving off into the night towards a bus (almost certainly followed by a long sleep on said bus and then an incredibly uncomfortable awakening in a depot a few hours later) was a horrendous idea, but both of us going in the car was not.
We would not have traffic to deal with and it would mean that we could both sites decorated without any interruption at all. I got out of my pyjamas and into some warm clothes and we were off.
We made the market in record time and were so early (it was about 3:30am at this stage) that most of the flower stalls had not opened yet. This meant that it was not quite as aesthetically fantastic as I had been expecting – instead of carpets of cut flowers and plants in all directions, there were lots of rather tacky Christmas decorations and tarpaulin covers, but we were able to get in and out in record time. We bought two huge boxes of eucalyptus and some poinsettas as well as some sprayed silver leaves and sped off to Clapham. Jude had kept up his morale boosting speech throughout and although he was starting to repeat most of the mantra’s, it was really good to listen to a happy, upbeat run down of the business - not that usual these days. We hadn’t spent that much time together for ages and that too was wonderful as I do miss my husband. Especially when he is telling me that I am the most wonderful woman in the world. He even thought that I was the sexiest woman in the world – no make up, very black circles under eyes and incredibly unflattering old clothes which gives an idea of the power of many beers, bless him. And bless the power of beer, come to think of it.
We got to Clapham first and after a bit of a debate decided to use the Eucalyptus to frame the mirrors with, using bits of the silver leaf to make it look a bit Christmassy. Jude handed me leaves, talking all the while, and I framed and things starting looking lovely and, we thought, very Green and Blue. Organic and natural and not at all tacky. Jude started a detailed lecture on how we should always have greenery round the mirrors and how on our next wine trip, we should bring vine cuttings back and grow that, harvesting the grapes once a year for a special Clapham cuvee. The vegetable man and the pastry man came and went, astonished to find us there and Jude engaged them both in lengthy discussions on the merits of their wares. It was all very merry and for the first time in a while, I felt amazingly positive.
We left Clapham at about 6am and headed for Lordship Lane, arriving just before the truck which comes to pump out the drains every day and costs a small fortune. Even that did not make me despondent. The two men on the truck told us how much they liked our bar was and how sorry they were that we were having to endure all of this at Christmas time. It really is very heartening to hear that people do care, particularly when I am feeling less than kindly towards so many people involved in this situation - gawd bless the drain men too!
Jude made the very good point that a bit of red would look lovely amongst all the greenery around the mirrors and so strolled down to the florist to pick something up. He came back with some bright red, Styrofoam, glittery apples and I added those to the mirrors at the back while he stood behind the bar, waving one of them for emphasis as he lectured Wayne (who had just arrived for work) on the merits of natural Christmas decoration. Wayne, not surprisingly, was incredibly bemused.
We finally left Lane at about 10am and went back to Clapham to drop off the left over Eucalyptus as well as some glittery apples for them and then off to do a delivery of wine to Harley street. Jude had started to slow down and I was beginning to feel more than a little unreal but we both felt like we had done a very good days work already as well as spending some splendid time together. I think perhaps this should become one of our Christmas traditions although in the interests of my husbands liver, perhaps without the alcoholic sustenance next time. And we think that the sites look lovely – hopefully all our customers will too. Jude is now slightly concerned that the flashing blue lights in the snug at Lordship Lane were perhaps a decision very much the result of a lack of sleep but I really like them.
I left here after the tasting on Thursday and got home at about 1am. Jude had been out for a drink with Olly (our Clapham manager) and still wasn’t home, so I was expecting the worst. He finally got back at about 2am and there were no surprises. He was indeed rather drunk. Jude is a lovely drunk actually, if he has not had so much that he passes the line of decorum. Crossing that line leads to weeks of non-communication and all round misery but much as I do not condone any sort of flagrant drunkenness, there are levels with him that are not too bad. The level he was at on Thursday was ‘loving and loquacious’ which is really not too bad at all. I was feeling really tired and not entirely in the mood for an endless monologue but when the gist of it was that we should not be sad anymore, things would get better, Green and Blue was fabulous and would survive and that he loved me, Olly, his job and most of the people he had met that evening very much, I could not really begrudge it. I did however beg him to stop at about 2.30am, reminding him that I really needed to go to sleep as I had to be up disgustingly early to go to the market for Christmas greenery.
‘Oh, don’t worry about it baby’, he slurred airily, ‘I’ll get on the night bus now and go. You go and get some sleep’.
I raised my eyebrows pityingly and brushed this off, repeating that we both really needed to go to sleep. He was insistent though and launched into a rambling explanation of a bus route from Queens Park to New Convent Garden in the early hours when I suddenly realised that perhaps this was not a bad idea. Jude weaving off into the night towards a bus (almost certainly followed by a long sleep on said bus and then an incredibly uncomfortable awakening in a depot a few hours later) was a horrendous idea, but both of us going in the car was not.
We would not have traffic to deal with and it would mean that we could both sites decorated without any interruption at all. I got out of my pyjamas and into some warm clothes and we were off.
We made the market in record time and were so early (it was about 3:30am at this stage) that most of the flower stalls had not opened yet. This meant that it was not quite as aesthetically fantastic as I had been expecting – instead of carpets of cut flowers and plants in all directions, there were lots of rather tacky Christmas decorations and tarpaulin covers, but we were able to get in and out in record time. We bought two huge boxes of eucalyptus and some poinsettas as well as some sprayed silver leaves and sped off to Clapham. Jude had kept up his morale boosting speech throughout and although he was starting to repeat most of the mantra’s, it was really good to listen to a happy, upbeat run down of the business - not that usual these days. We hadn’t spent that much time together for ages and that too was wonderful as I do miss my husband. Especially when he is telling me that I am the most wonderful woman in the world. He even thought that I was the sexiest woman in the world – no make up, very black circles under eyes and incredibly unflattering old clothes which gives an idea of the power of many beers, bless him. And bless the power of beer, come to think of it.
We got to Clapham first and after a bit of a debate decided to use the Eucalyptus to frame the mirrors with, using bits of the silver leaf to make it look a bit Christmassy. Jude handed me leaves, talking all the while, and I framed and things starting looking lovely and, we thought, very Green and Blue. Organic and natural and not at all tacky. Jude started a detailed lecture on how we should always have greenery round the mirrors and how on our next wine trip, we should bring vine cuttings back and grow that, harvesting the grapes once a year for a special Clapham cuvee. The vegetable man and the pastry man came and went, astonished to find us there and Jude engaged them both in lengthy discussions on the merits of their wares. It was all very merry and for the first time in a while, I felt amazingly positive.
We left Clapham at about 6am and headed for Lordship Lane, arriving just before the truck which comes to pump out the drains every day and costs a small fortune. Even that did not make me despondent. The two men on the truck told us how much they liked our bar was and how sorry they were that we were having to endure all of this at Christmas time. It really is very heartening to hear that people do care, particularly when I am feeling less than kindly towards so many people involved in this situation - gawd bless the drain men too!
Jude made the very good point that a bit of red would look lovely amongst all the greenery around the mirrors and so strolled down to the florist to pick something up. He came back with some bright red, Styrofoam, glittery apples and I added those to the mirrors at the back while he stood behind the bar, waving one of them for emphasis as he lectured Wayne (who had just arrived for work) on the merits of natural Christmas decoration. Wayne, not surprisingly, was incredibly bemused.
We finally left Lane at about 10am and went back to Clapham to drop off the left over Eucalyptus as well as some glittery apples for them and then off to do a delivery of wine to Harley street. Jude had started to slow down and I was beginning to feel more than a little unreal but we both felt like we had done a very good days work already as well as spending some splendid time together. I think perhaps this should become one of our Christmas traditions although in the interests of my husbands liver, perhaps without the alcoholic sustenance next time. And we think that the sites look lovely – hopefully all our customers will too. Jude is now slightly concerned that the flashing blue lights in the snug at Lordship Lane were perhaps a decision very much the result of a lack of sleep but I really like them.
