It’s been years since Wheaton had any kind of market day, so this is a new one on me. Izz is closer to it than I am, and she’s already checking it out. She turns to me and does an exaggerated shrug with a plumped lip.
‘No idea,’ she mouths.
The awning’s in place now and I see the guy fiddling with a big white bundle and some kind of machinery on the ground. It’s only when the sound from a puttering generator reaches me that I realise what it is. He’s inflating a huge, bobbing snowman, and he’s drawing a crowd.
Just as I’m craning my neck for a better view over all the heads, Lolla, the always-vaping landlady of Wheaton’s only pub, The Salutation, approaches with her son, Ben, bundled in his red coat like Paddington Bear.
‘What’s all that about?’ I ask her, nodding towards the stall.
‘They’re selling Dunham Gravey tickets,’ she tells me through a haze of apple-scented vapour.
I peer even harder now and can just make out the pale green of the estate’s crest. ‘What? For their Christmas lights thing?’
‘You’d know they applied for a pop-up licence if you ever came to any of the council meetings,’ she says with a laugh and a touch at my arm, and she sails past with Ben.
I hear the new head teacher telling Lolla that vaping’s not permitted in the vicinity of the school grounds, but I don’t stay to hear her, doubtless, sarky reply.
I sneak my way along the pavement, passing the low Cotswold stone walls and prettily painted garden gates on my left – the blue one is Izz’s cottage. The frigid winter’s morning air carries the music coming from the interloper’s stall all down the high street.
One of the school-run grandmothers with three kids in tow is opening her purse and buying a handful of tickets. The stallholder, looking very smart in a branded green gilet, has a proper sign that boasts of theDunham Gravey Christmas Illuminations Spectacular, Dec 1st–31st. The whole set-up looks extremely professional.
I’m almost level with Izz at her crossing. She gives me a warning look.
‘What?’ I mouth. ‘I’m not going to say anything.’
She shoos me back towards the school gates. I’d better obey. I’ll never make any money at this rate. Not now Green Gilet Guy has arrived to steal all my donations.
‘I should’ve had a branded gingerbread grotto gilet made,’ I mutter to myself once I’m stationed back outside the school, dismayed that the traffic’s clearing already (not great for business) but glad to see the grumpy head’s stalked off into the school building.
Even if I did have the money, I wouldn’t be wasting it on flashy fleeces. Every spare penny I’ve come by this year has gone into the grotto pot.
I can’t help staring along the road again. There’s a line forming for Dunham Gravey tickets. Gilet is delighted. Every time another person joins his queue the bloke’s face lights up like Mariah Carey’s Christmas tree.
I suppose I could’ve knitted myself an official ‘event planner’ jumper if it would mean more interest, maybe with little cookie houses all around the hem and the wordsWheaton Village Gingerbread Grottoacross my chest? Or would novelty knitwear betooweird?
There goes another bundle of his tickets! You know, I wouldn’t mind the massive success of their magical-woodland-Christmas-lights-walk-with-live-orchestral-pyrotechnics-and-dancing-fountains-finalequite so muchif it hadn’t been dreamt up by the faceless Dunham bosses two years ago, immediately nabbing what was left of my festive regulars from the surrounding area.
Thirty quid their tickets start at. Each! Kids too. I don’t know how the average family can afford it… Is that a card reader he’s produced? OK, so he’s taking Visa payments. Flash git. My trusty tinsel-wrapped tin looks sorrier than ever.
I shake it at another of the mums and receive twenty-five pence and a sheepish smile in return. ‘All I’ve got on me, sorry.’
She’s clasping Dunham tickets, I notice.
I suppose if you’ve shelled out a few hundred quid to treat your family to a great big Christmassy night out enjoying the Dunham Gravey lights, you’re unlikely to be desperate to throw even more money at holiday outings. And certainly not our one. People aren’t exactly dying to part with an additional twenty quid on the door (that’s how much one of our family tickets cost) to come and stand in a draughty 1950s hall and look at our traditional gingerbread village display before receiving a Poundland pencil case and a net of chocolate coins from what is obviously Patrick, the primary school caretaker, in a synthetic beard and Santa suit.
Dunham Gravey’s got outdoor pizza ovens and a festive fairground, all at extra cost, of course. We don’t even have parking. Not now the school’s dropped the bombshell they won’t be letting us use their staff car park this year. BlastedDrop a Dress Size for Christmasboot camp in the PE hall every night this month.
Roadside parking in Wheaton’s tricky at the best of times, what with our Cotswold village being a three-street, forty-cottages kind of affair. Even then, we somehow still warrant double yellows everywhere and our own weekend traffic warden. As if the council doesn’t have anything better to do than preventing drivers popping into the village shop for a pint of milk and a Lotto ticket.
There are fields and fields of off-road, well-lit, accessible parking at Dunham flippin’ Gravey. And a gift shop. And a cafeteria. The grotto’s mulled wine stall can’t compete with any of that.
Izz is giving me a puzzled look. It says,Buck up, Margi!
Ishouldtry to think more positively. If not for Izz, then for Patrick. He’s going to do himself proud this year with his new hydraulics set-up and dry-ice machine, transforming my mother’s once static display into a flying gingerbread sleigh scene, with real smoking chimneys and houses lit from the inside in an edible diorama to end all dioramas.Oh!It does promise to be so lovely this Christmas.
Ah, so I can still smile? Good to know.
I bring my hand to my cheek where there’s a definite flush of heat going on. I can feel it through my glove. Nothing to do with Patrick, of course, just a little whoosh of Christmas joy.
