We had tied a Santa hat on the cut end, as a red flag of warning and a Christmas salute. My friend sat in the back simultaneously holding on to the rear door and the trunk of the tree poking out the back. I drove home with spruce branches in my face. It was a La Bohème kind of encounter though, as we shared bars of chocolate and hoped that Christmas would be Merry. Che gelida manina (your tiny hand is frozen) was the best I could manage by way of conversation. The Italians spoke little English and my Italian is dependent on the opera. That morning my tall friend and I had dug out two Italians in a Fiat 500 a delightful car for a jaunt, but ill-adapted to waist-high wedges of the white stuff. Wanting the world to be better not doing enough to make it so. As I get older I realise that who, or what we are, is really a cluster of contradictions. In the winter I am a one-woman rescue service tow-rope, snow shovel, Labrador. I was driving my Land Rover Defender 90 – the vehicle I use in the summer to terrorise tourists in Lower Slaughter. In mid-December last year I set out to bring home my Christmas tree from a small wood belonging to a tall friend.
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