Ellie in ninth heaven while I head for Spanish Christmas

Creatures of habit since 1979, Christmas Day was spent in Sarratt. Once we had 19 for Christmas dinner but that tradition came to an end with our decision to move to France, with our last celebration in 2003.

It seemed to be a successful tradition. Anyway, we enjoyed it and I recall, when we informed Ellie’s mother and step-father that we were going to live in France, after a moment’s reflection he turned to his wife and asked: “So what are we going to do Christmas Day?”

I will miss a pre-Christmas party in Sarratt, for friends took over our tradition of having a party the Saturday before Christmas, and we have attended regularly. Of course we will miss the family but our reason, for staying on the European mainland for the festive season, is sound.

Our youngest was due to give birth to her second child on December 22 in Sant Cugat, just over the mountains from Barcelona. I say “due” because that date was brought forward a week and she was set to undergo a Caesarean operation earlier this week.

Ellie travelled down over last weekend to be on hand for support and I will be joining the family on the 23rd for my first Christmas in Spain. We are booked into a complex, which is part hotel, part apartment, for six days as our daughter’s apartment is not big enough to house four adults, two small dogs, their four-year-old and a new baby.

I shall stay for six days and then head back to France while Ellie, moving into the apartment, will lend further support for a week. So normality is disrupted and that in itself, I have learnt relatively late in life, is not such a bad thing.

However, it was of some concern to Ellie that I would be on my own on New Year’s Eve.

I reminded her that a few months before emigrating, we stayed in. Well, to be frank, I went up to a Sarratt pub, became disenchanted with the company and headed home, where I saw the New Year in with a glass or two of rioja and a lengthy programme on the singer Sam Cooke, which helped to make the evening memorable and enjoyable.

We have attended a few dinner-parties, been to dances, parties and pub nights over the years but somehow New Year’s Eve has eluded me. On most occasions down the decades, I have felt a little flat, frustrated at trying to savour the taste of the event, but finding it as if covered in cellophane – just out of reach.

This New Year, there is a party in Limousin, which would prove enjoyable, linking up with friends we made over the years, but that is over 400kms away, and a round trip in excess of 500 miles seems a trifle onerous, even if I was assured the cellophane would be removed and I could get the real taste on New Year’s Eve.

So I was seriously facing the prospect of staying in on my own for the over-rated big night, but then I was invited to a party in Mazamet, hosted by people I have never met and of the 26 invitees, I know only two – one from Chester and the other from Sussex.

We have not made any effort to get to know the locally-based ex-pats, so this will be an unforced introduction.

Nevertheless, the party will be a challenge yet, as they are all English, I won’t have to worry about the language barrier, although observing a few ex-Pats around that town, there seems to be a predominance of Birmingham-type accents in the locality.

I must brush up on the ABC of Droitwich, a name that, along with Bromsgrove, when spoken by a native, tends to bring out all the excesses of that accent.

So I have told all our girls the cheque is literally in the post this Christmas and while that may seem somewhat clinical and lacking in festive feeling, we console ourselves that any such concerns will have worn off by the time the doors open on the January sales.

Normally, we make two visits: one at Christmas and the other in May, but next year we will come back for Easter and catch up with the grandchildren, all but two of whom we have also spent time with last May and during the summer when they visited us in The Tarn.

I understand Christmas Eve is reasonably significant in Spain but, as with France, Christmas Day is a little low key.

So regrettably this Christmas, we will not be seeing the usual quota of grandchildren opening their presents, although we will be seeing one welcoming the day and also celebrate the arrival of our ninth grandchild. I won’t be able to drop into the Nascot in Watford for a Thai meal, sample some fish’n’chips in Courtlands Drive and perhaps worst of all, I will not be sampling a few pints of real ale.

There is some consolation: my favourite rioja almost comes straight out of the ground in Spain and there is a good Nepalese restaurant in Gracia, Barcelona, so I will at least work in a curry.

But the brightest spot of all is that since starting this reflection, our ninth grandchild was born in Sant Cugat weighing in at 7lbs. Violet is our seventh grand daughter and I am reliably informed by all and sundry, this is the last. The parents seem pretty pleased but Ellie's enthusiasm is off the scale, judging by the burblings that have come down the phone.

Looking forward to seeing her and sampling a taste of Spanish Christmas.

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