Cruel Yule: Part 6 – Leaving home

As he stretched on the tips of his pointed toes to pull the aged cistern's chain, Elvis heard a crash from the parlour. Concerned, he darted from the bathroom to see what had happened. 

Klaus was sitting on the floor sorting through the contents of an upturned drawer from the dresser scattered across the floor. He was scrabbling about amid the old greetings cards, bits of string, tattered catalogues, gum wrappers and blunt pencil stubs, muttering frantically to himself.“Where the devil is it? Here. Here.  I swear I put it in here for safe-keeping.”

He opened an old tobacco tin for the fifth time and up-ended it on the pile on the floor.

“What are you looking for?” asked Elvis.

“Nothing you’d know anything about, elf.”

Elvis sniffed huffily. He knew he was lowly, but he didn’t like being reminded of it.

“Well, if you stop thrashing about like an elk in quicksand for a moment, you might have a better chance of finding it,” he said, emboldened by irritation. “And if you tell me what it is, I might be able to help you look. Elves have very good eyes, you know.”

Klaus looked up and straightened his crooked bifocals. The elf was right.

“There’s a special key for the sleigh that lets me drive it just one reindeer instead of the whole team,” he offered. “I don’t trust most of ’em, but I reckon I’ve got enough on one to make sure he keeps his mouth shut.

“I never needed it – til now. But I always thought I’d put in a safe place. Doesn’t help that it’s so flaming small.”

Elvis put his hands in his tunic pocket and frowned in concentration. His fingers fell on one last jelly baby that Entynne had missed in her fit of generosity to the sugar-fiend reindeer last night. He pulled it out and regarded it absently. A green one. Not his favourite, but it would do. He popped it into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.

As he did, he slid his hand into the other pocket. Idly twiddling the lint stuck to the side of his tinderbox, he felt something small, small and hard. It had at circle at one end, a short shaft no more than a quarter of an inch long, and two prongs sticking out to the sides.

His face brightened with realisation and he pulled the object out and held it up in the old man’s direction.

“Anything like this one?” he asked, exercising all his will power to avoid crying ‘Ta Da!’ in a triumphant sing-song.

Despite being in the his pocket for as long as he could remember, the key was as bright and shiny as it must have been the day it was newly cast. Cold sunlight glinted off it and sent a glimmering spotlight dancing across on the parlour wall.

Klaus stared, lost for words. He reached for the miniature key and examined it, turning over and over again in his big, clumsy hands. “Well, well, well,” he chuckled to himself.

Suddenly stern, he looked up at Elvis and demanded: “Where did you get this?”

“No idea.”

To his amazement the man in red seemed to accept his rather unsatisfactory answer.

“Hmmmph. Well, let’s see then.”

And grabbing his fur-trimmed hat and the sack with his prized possessions, he flung open the farmhouse door and strode out into the cold day.

“Are you coming or not, elf?” he shouted over his shoulder. “There’s no more time for toilet breaks.”

Elvis pulled the door closed behind him and sprinted after the old man. He had to jog to keep pace with his long paces across the frosty yard, his breath billowing out like smoke from Wilbur’s long pipe after a particularly long story-telling session.

“Where are we going?” he puffed.

“Where do you think? To the sleigh. But first, we need Rudolph.”

Most of the reindeer were still grazing in the paddock, but the red-nosed outcast was nowhere to be seen. Comet and his horse-faced mate looked up as the old man and the elf passed, before dismissing them and returning to delicately nibbling red, green and blue lichen from the drystone wall in front of them.

Klaus pushed open the door to the deer shed. Deep within, a faint glow could be seen from the corner. Klaus grabbed a set of reins debecked with crimson holly berries (but no noisy bells) and clattered them against the wooden sides of the nearest stall.

“Gerrup, yer lazy arse!” he bellowed.

A whimper came from the corner, followed by the pathetic sight of the sugar-crazed reindeer creeping out, his head hung low and his nose the dull red of a dying match. Clearly, last night’s fix had just been a temporary fix and he was now in the grips of a momentous glucose crash.

“Come on! I haven’t got all day. And I’ve got something to help you get going.” Klaus rattled a handful of candy canes and crystallised fruit.

Rudolph sniffed the air, rallied, and made a clumsy, staggering canter up the length of the shed. He thrust he snout into the old man’s hand and snuffled, licked and chewed greedily.

Klaus threw the reins to Elvis and told him to put them on the animal. Rudolph hardly noticed a thing as the leather straps were passed around his neck and tied across his muzzle. He just stood there, his eyes almost and his nose glowing brighter by the second, in a trance of sugar-induced ecstasy.

Gently taking the reindeer by the antler, Klaus pulled him in the direction of a low brick building at the far end of the paddock. A barely visible track led to its weather-beaten green doors – it was clearly used only on special occasions. The door opened and a heavy wooden sleigh emerged from the gloom. Klaus led Rudolph inside and after a symphony of huffing, the jangling of bells, and a few choice swear words later, they emerged with the animal firmly between the shafts of the sleigh, a nosebag filled with sherbet dib-dabs round his neck, and the old man in the driver’s seat.

“Well, if you’re coming, now’s the time,” he said, patting the cushioned seat next to him. “It’s time to blow this joint, hit the candy stores and find a drinking hole with a philosopher-barkeep we can tell our woes to.”

He reached in his pocket, pulled the golden key out and inserted it in a tiny hole in the dashboard. Rudolph’s stopped his manic crunching and looked up, suddenly alert and his nose burning neon red. A strange whirring vibrated through the air, and a soft cushion of air inserted itself between the sleigh and the snowy ground.

Elvis took one look back at the elf shed – to the only life he’d ever known. Nothing had changed. Everything looked the same. Dooley was busily hammering away at a loose slat on the reindeer shed. Entynne was giggling with a gaggle of her friends as they headed for the workshop. Myffanwy discreetly emptied the contents of Wilbur’s chamber pot onto the vegetable patch.

Not one of them missed him. No-one was looking for him. Probably hadn’t even noticed he had gone.  

He stepped onto the sleigh and gave Klaus a grim nod.

….stay tuned for the next episode, coming soon.

Cruel Yule: Part 5 - Elvis has left the building

Elvis looked up as Myffanwy slipped into the shed. The aroma of rich, strong coffee wafted from the canteen in her hand, and he wished he had a place at the Elders’ Table to enjoy the dark brew. He could do with it after the night he’d had. But all he got from the Shed Mother was a reassuring nod to put his mind at ease. The old man was alright, if a little frayed around the edges.

Outside, a clatter of door bolts and buckets told him that Grinwold was already at work, opening the reindeers’ stalls and pouring steaming hot mash into the long trough in the yard. Shame the resident livestock guru had been comatose from too much mead and an excess of Wilbur’s wisdom last night. But then Grinwold had always been a morning elf. After dusk, he was about as much use as a hand towel at the bottom of Lake Cuileann.

Elvis sighed. Things were back to normal. Well, sort of.

Dooley had cut him dead, and taken his oatmeal to the far corner this morning. Entynne was sitting to the side, conscientiously avoiding his gaze and making an exaggerated display of engaging with everyone. Everyone but him.

The Elders, though they must have known what he’d done the night before, not to mention the unknown perils he’d braved, didn’t even acknowledge his existence. He was just another wood elf, a nothing, a nobody. Plenty more where he came from.

He wasn’t going to take it anymore. He flung down his wooden porridge bowl, shrugged on his tunic and stormed out of the door with all the huff and histrionics of a fully-fledged Drama Queen.

No-one noticed.

He waited for a moment outside the shed door for someone, anyone, but preferably Dooley or Entynne, to follow him to see what was wrong.

Far off in the chilled landscape, a dog barked and a cat yowled. A snort from the paddock alerted him to the reindeer, now snuffling about on the snowy ground. Not one looked in his direction.

Ungrateful gits, he growled to himself, half-hoping that his words would be caught and carried by the chill breeze to the ears those so studiously ignoring him.

They weren’t.

Not quite sure what to do now his melodramatic gesture had gone unnoticed, he looked over to the farmhouse. He’d never spoken directly to Klaus, he was too junior for that, but now he was driven by disillusionment. He also needed to pee, and he couldn’t bear the thought of losing face by creeping back into the elf shed to answer the call of nature.

It was time to have a word with the old man.

He stomped across the yard and flung the door open without even pausing to knock. The force with which it flew open surprised even him, and he glanced up at the jamb in bewilderment for a moment.

In front of the fireplace, the stooped figure of Klaus looked up from the complex task of hooking his belt through the loops of his thick red jacket. His eyes were bleary, his mouth slack and his white hair stood up in shocks that defied gravity and even the most perverse sense of style.

“You must be Elvis,” he said, before adding with a low laugh. “Just so you know, I’m not in the mood for a song.”

“What?”  The startled elf was blissfully unaware of his musical namesake. 

“Listen old man,” he continued. “We need to talk. Look at the state of you, you’re a disgrace! I risked my neck last night to feed your precious reindeer. It was a miracle I made it back to the elf shed in one piece. Who knows what’s lurking out there in the dark?

“And what thanks do I get for it? Nothing. Not even a cup of stinking coffee.”

Klaus walked to the kitchen stove.

“If it’s coffee you want, here.” He poured a cup from the pot and banged it down on the table in front of the enraged elf.

Elvis sniffed the brew, then picked up the cup and took a sip. It was good. It was really good. Magical even. He felt his fury and disappointment melt, ever so slightly, at the very edges of his emotion. He took another sip, but kept his angry glare focused on the man in red.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” confessed Klaus. “You’re right. I am a bloody disgrace. Don’t deserve the suit or any of the stuff that comes with it. But really, who can blame me? Have you seen the state of the world we’re supposed to be bringing Christmas cheer to?”

Elvis shook his head. He was an elf. He knew nothing of the world beyond the homestead, the workshop and a few rumours he’d heard from the Elders who joined Klaus on his annual excursion.

“Come, let me show you.” The old man motioned the elf over to his desk, piled high with letters, newspapers and something the size of a book but with a blank screen where the cover and pages should have been.

Klaus took the book thing and with a click of a button with his bitten thumbnail, its screen lit up with an array of images. He scrolled and clicked, showing Elvis a world beyond anything the elf had ever dreamed of. Not even in his worst nightmares.

A child’s doll, not unlike the ones Entynne and the others on the workshop production line turned out, lay abandoned amid rubble on a street. The scene behind was coated in dust and destruction. In the distance, a boy lay prone on the wrecked pavement.

Klaus clicked again, and the sight of group of dark-skinned girls huddled in a dim hut appeared. All wore headscarves, some were visibly crying. One stared, empty-eyed and robbed of her childhood, out of the image. Her gaze stayed with Elvis even after the picture changed.

A pinch-faced, balding man, probably in his 80s, sat alone and lonely, in a room festooned with meagre Christmas decorations. A plate of food sat before him, and he was trying to pull a Christmas cracker with himself. There was no-one else to share it with.

A bloated, red-cheeked man in a wig that looked like it was made from a cheap nylon carpet gesticulated and spouted hatred, greed and belligerence to an enrapt crowd below.

Tall chimneys thrust acrid smoke into the sky, covering the stars and moon with a thick cloud of filth.

At a row of dumpsters, a grey-haired lady wearing mismatched gloves and a woollen hat, sorted through the rubbish for food.

A polar bear perched in indecision at the edge of a rapidly diminishing ice floe, before taking the plunge into the water to swim for land.

In a city shop doorway, a hollow-eyed youth peered out from a bundle of cardboard and rags at the busy shoppers dashing to and fro in their frantic bid to buy more, more, more….

The elf looked up at Klaus, his eyes brimming with tears and bemusement. “I-I-I d-don’t understand,” he stuttered.

“You and me both,” answered the man in red. “Maybe now you understand why I wonder if it’s worth carrying on. Perhaps it would be better if we just didn’t bother any more.”

He stopped, stared into space for more moments than were comfortable for Elvis.

“That’s it,” he said, abruptly breaking the silence. “I’ve had enough. No more. I’m off.”

He rose and started gathering some things in a large sacks – coffee, the all-important coffee pot, a toothbrush, spare socks and underwear, a bottle of whiskey, a carton of cigarettes.

Elvis watched, pale and shell-shocked by the morning’s revelations, before finding his voice.

“Please, take me with you. But first, can I use your toilet?”

What next? Watch this space.

Cruel Yule: Part 4 - The morning after

A rapid rapping rang through the crisp morning air as Yaffle the woodpecker battered an old beech tree in search of a tasty snack of sleeping bugs and beetles. A pair of rooks cawed in soft argument as they took off from the upper branches of a bare oak. A cat picked its way daintily through the snow, shaking its paws with disdain at every step it took. A watery winter sun crept up from the horizon, casting a silver lining to everything it touched.

It was an idyllic midwinter scene, worthy of a thousand Christmas cards. If you’d grown up on a diet of Disney, you might even expect to see a flock of robins and a blue-jay carrying a garland of holly leaves and blood-red berries from the woods beyond. And maybe a squirrel or two carrying a bunch of snowdrops – spectacularly stupid squirrels unawares that they were supposed to be hibernating.

Unless you happened to be in Klaus’ head.

He greeted the morning with a groan loud enough to register his horror at nature’s noisy intrusion, but just quiet enough not to shatter his skull into pieces. He felt like a colony of mining dwarves had taken up residence in his cranium and was hard at work digging for gold. Not that there was much chance of unearthing any treasures in there.

He opened one rheumy eye, and squinted against the frosty white light flooding in through the window. His mouth tasted like five-day-old mink droppings, his nose was cold, and the scent of spilled alcohol, old chips and musty paper and ink filled his nostrils. With a moan like a prize heifer giving birth to quadruplets he pushed himself upright in his chair.

A letter from little Danny from Dunsville was stuck to his cheek with drool. He peeled it off like a band aid, burped sourly, and placed it with exaggerated care on the ‘Naughty’ list next to him, unaware of the faint ink letters that had transferred themselves to the side of his face overnight.

As it happened, Danny had been a perfect little angel all year, but virtue would have to be its own reward this year. Thanks to the foul mood his hangover put Klaus in, all the youngster would find in his stocking on Christmas morning would be a pencil sharpener, a book of crosswords, a lump of coal and note saying “Better luck next year, kid.”.

A quiet bustling at the door signaled the entry of Myffanwy, Wilbur The Ancient’s wife of 300-odd years. Unlike Wilbur, she wasn’t content to sit back and wallow in the glory of tales of olden times. Myffanwy was a doer, not a talker, and she ruled the elf shed with a gentle iron fist hidden beneath her hand-knitted mittens. She also made the world’s best hot chocolate and a wicked coffee blend that had enough caffeine to raise the dead.

She cast a disapproving though not unkind stare in his direction, shook her head, and waddled over to the stove in the corner with nothing more than a sharp tut. Klaus breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing he needed right now was a lecture. Right now, it hurt to move.

As she clattered about on the stove, he tried to pull himself into some semblance of respectability and mentally prepare himself for the scolding he knew was inevitable once he’d had his coffee. Looking around him, he saw his left boot upside-down on the coat stand, right next to a pair of Easter Bunny boxer shorts. In a panic, he looked down at his crotch and sighed in relief to see his flabby thighs covered by red flannel thermal long-johns. He reached for the trousers flung over the burlap sack in the corner and pulled them on before hopping over to the coat rack and pulling his stray boot on over a holey striped sock.

A chipped enamel mug appeared on the pile of papers in front of him and the smell of toast and frying bacon filled the house. He sipped at the steamy black liquid and grimaced at its bitterness, but grateful for the kick it delivered. A plate containing half a fry-up was placed in front of him.

“No eggs, seeing as how someone hasn’t bothered to collect any from the hen coops for three days,” said the bustling elf sternly. “And no milk either, as you left the pail from yesterday out on the doorstep. It’s now as solid as a rock, unfortunately for the couple of voles who decided to take a swim in it.”

Shame-faced, Klaus wiped coffee from his snowy beard and a stray bead of snot from where his nose hairs met his bushy moustache.

“You’re a bloody marvel, you know that Fwanny?” he growled.

“Too right, I am. And much more than you deserve.

I don’t know. A grown man with serious responsibilities acting like a spoiled teenager in a sulk.”

Klaus nodded absently as he chewed on the savoury fried rashers.

“You outdid yourself last night,” continued Myffanwy. “Nearly had a riot in the reindeer shed. You can thank Elvis for making sure there wasn’t.”

A puzzled look flitted across the farmer’s brow as he tried to imagine how the King of Rock and Roll could have averted disaster on his homestead, about as far away from Graceland that anyone could get.

...Part 5 coming soon - stay tuned. 

Cruel Yule: Part 3 - Into the deer shed

A wave of warmth hit the two elves as they stepped into the gloom of the barn. Velvety darkness, with just dull grey outlines hinting where the stalls were, hid its inhabitants. Every other sense, however, betrayed their presence.  Snorts and grunts greeted them, and as they moved towards the sounds Elvis felt the huff of hot breath on his cheek. Entynne’s hand sought his and he grasped it gratefully, hoping his eagerness wouldn’t come across as too needy or melodramatic.

They stepped slowly into the cocktail of scents. Warm flesh and hay mingled with a sharp acrid undertone. And when they opened their mouths, they could taste the inevitable evidence of a group of large animals shut inside a shed for hours on end.

“Eee-uw!” groaned Entynne, as her boot slipped into something slimy on the floor, sending up an unmistakable stench that answered the question of what is was. “Reindeer are so gross.”

A harsh hur-umph of indignation came from the far corner.

As their eyes adjusted, shapes floated out of the blackness. Dim glints of light shining through the slats of the walls bounced off antlers and gleaming eyes, and other details slowly drifted up. To his right, Elvis spied a lantern hanging low on the wall. He dropped Entynne’s hand and patted his tunic pocket for his tinderbox, then reached for the lantern and whispered a little prayer that it held enough candle and wick to light once he got a spark.

His first strike produced nothing. The side of the box was damp and reluctant to produce a spark. After trying five more times and adding a few choice elven curses, a flame finally blossomed and lit the stubby lump of wax. He closed the lantern and lifted it to shoulder height.

Nine sets of reindeer eyes stared silently at the elves, like Members of the Board in a meeting interrupted by a pair of over-eager office cleaners. Some slowly chewed the cud, one coughed decorously, another let out a whining fart that sounded like a complaint.  At the far end, a radiant red nose lit a final set of eyes, making their owner look like a thing possessed.

Entynne bent down and pulled the lid off a wooden barrel in the corner. It was half-full with the specially-enriched lichen pellets Klaus fed the beasts. She took a large scoopful of the greenish-gold lumps and poured them into the trough at the nearest stall. The two animals inside pranced in delight and thrust their muzzles into the mix, setting off sparkles as they crunched the contents. Elvis swore that the hind legs of one of them seemed to levitate ever so slightly as she gobbled greedily.

One by one, they filled the feeding troughs and the reindeer greedily tucked into their evening meal. But as the approached the last stall, the first animal they’d fed raised its head and said it a clipped Scandinavian accent “Don’t bother with him, my friends. He wouldn’t touch high fibre with an antler.”

Knocked on his backside by shock into a soft sludge of something unmentionable, Elvis shook his head in disbelief. He goggled at the reindeer and stuttered “Excuse m-me. Wh –wh-what did you say?”

With a huff of warm breath through its nostrils, the animal sighed. “Don’t waste the lichen on him. He won’t eat it. It’s sugar he wants. A real junkie. Why do you think his nose is red?

“By the way, Comet’s the name. Thank you so much for stepping in after you-know-who drunk himself silly. Terribly decent. Much obliged, I’m sure.” 

He finished his sentence with a sharp Teutonic click of his back heels, and bent back down to his trough.

Entynne took a step back, stumbling against the plank in front of the last stall. A hot, dry muzzle pressed against her hand and sniffed greedily. With a suppressed sneeze, it pulled back and nuzzled her tunic pocket. Soft lips found the spare candy cane she’d been saving for later and pulled it out in a flash. Before she could shout in protest, the striped stick had been dropped to the ground and stamped to a fine powder under the reindeer’s hooves. The animal then bent its head and proceeded to snort the crushed candy up. With every snort, its red nose glowed brighter.

“Bloody riff-raff,” Comet spat, and turned back to his food.

Past his first frenzy, Rudolph (if had to be him, didn’t it?) looked up at Entynne with doleful eyes and a pathetic hopeful smile playing on his snout.

“I needed that, I really did. Thank you,” came a voice that spoke of a thousand sleepness nights and years of self-abuse. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any more, have you, darlin'?”

The elf shook her dark curls and offered the scoopful of pellets “No, sorry. Why don’t I give you some of these instead.”

“Nah, can’t take ‘em. Food intolerance, innit? Anyway, I got special needs, seeing as how I’ve got a special job to do.”

“Pah!” came a disgusted snort from a female reindeer – Comet’s stall-mate – with a face reminiscent of the ascetic schoolma’am who had punished Entynne for laughing too much as Elf School. 

Warming to the red-nosed outcast at the thought her schooldays tormentor, she signaled to Elvis to empty his pockets. The first produced a disappointing haul - his tinderbox, a couple of acorns and small golden key he always carried but had no idea what it unlocked. The other, however, was better. Two handfuls of jelly babies, the red ones with their heads bitten off. His eyes beseeched Entynne not to take them, but to no avail. She grabbed them and held them out to Rudolph who gobbled them up in a hurry, before Elvis had the chance to change his mind.

The elves sat on a bale of hay and waited. Silence fell in stages as, one by one, the reindeer lay down in their stalls and settled for the night after their feed. All except Rudolph who was busy chasing the reflection of his now positively phosphorescent nose around his stall. A sugar rush can have that effect.

A nod between the elves agreed it was time to get back. Steeling themselves against the winds and unknown horrors outside, they pulled their robes tight around them and slipped out of the door, across the yard and back into the elf shed just in time to see Wilbur The Ancient scratch his crotch and furtively steal a blanket from the young elf lying asleep at his feet.

….stay tuned for the next episode, coming soon.

When is a boot, not a boot?

I’m honoured to count among my friends Halina, a fellow transplanted Brit who made Greece her home. She’s a constant fount of wit, wisdom, optimism, dirty jokes, humanity and compassion. Not one for empty words, she puts herself on the line to do something real when she sees a need. Here’s what she wrote recently after returning from a stint volunteering with a group of ladies on the island of Lesvos trying to help the waves of refugees fleeing desperate conditions back home. It’s straight from the heart and well worth reading all the way through.

“While I was in Lesvos, my first experience helping with an incoming boat of refugees at Skala Sikaminea was in torrential rain. Sixty men, women and children scrambled to shore soaked to the skin and shivering uncontrollably from the cold, but every one of them grateful to have made it across that short but sometimes treacherous piece of water that separated them from the life they were forced to leave behind and what they hope will be the beginnings of a better future.

There was an urgent need to get these people out of their drenched clothes and into something dry, particularly the children and babies who, cold and bewildered by what was happening, clung tightly to their parents.

There was chaos all around me. What to do first? Before I could answer that question I was confronted by a distressed young father holding a baby girl around 12-18 months old in his arms. The young mother was suffering from shock and had been taken to the medical tent for attention. I took the baby out of his arms and told him in sign language that I would take care of her pointing to the tent distributing dry clothes. He nodded and turned back to the medical tent to go to the baby's mother. The baby wasn't so sure though and started to cry as soon as she left her father's arms, but thankfully a local man with lollipops appeared and waved this magic treat which appeased the baby long enough for me to carry her the short distance to the clothes distribution tent where a couple of volunteers were scrambling among the shelves trying to find appropriate clothes and sizes for those waiting in the queue and rain.

The shivering baby had resumed her crying and was getting heavier and heavier in my arms as her clothes took in more and more water. Finally I managed to get the attention of one of the volunteers and held up the baby so she could see roughly the size of clothes I needed. After three attempts she managed to find a thin top, leggings and socks which were a couple of sizes too big but better than nothing. I took them telling myself I would go back later for something warmer to put on top, all the time talking as soothingly as I could to the baby who had lost all interest in the lollipop in her cold, shaking hand but was still clinging to it fiercely.

The father appeared and I pointed to a changing tent to let him know I would be there and pointed to his own clothes to let him know he should get dry clothes himself. Once in the dark tent I laid the baby down on a floor mat and proceeded to undress her. By this time my own fingers were wet and cold which didn't help in unzipping and peeling off the baby's jacket which had swelled with water. Renewed cries broke out when her stiff arms had to be maneuvered from tight sleeves and her drenched sweater refused to go over her head. I had to tug and pry it off her head as it clung to her hair and ears knowing that I had no choice but to ignore her screams of protest.

At this point I have to admit I was very close to tears myself. But then I noticed one of my teammates was also in the tent changing another baby (which turned out to be the sibling of mine) having an equally difficult time and I took courage in the fact that I was not the only one feeling totally inadequate. Finally, the top half of the baby's clothes were removed and the dry top put on (no towels to dry baby first). Now for the bottom half starting with her boots that had two buckles and a zip to be negotiated with freezing, wet fingers. Then trousers, tights, underwear were peeled off to reveal, horrors, a wringing wet diaper (how long since I last changed one of those?) and no clean one in sight. Covering the protesting baby with a blanket I rushed to the clothes tent, grabbed two diapers and an extra pair of socks.

Back to the tent and with the diaper successfully negotiated, I put on the rest of the clothes and thrust one of the boots to my teammate who had finished changing her baby asking her to find me a pair of shoes that size. The father was back changing into his dry clothes (together with several other men – had I gone into the men's changing tent in my haste to change the baby? Whatever, no-one cared). Leggings and socks on, I again covered the baby and went in search of a warm jacket. Back again with a jacket and rain poncho, the baby was finally dressed and warm enough to have stopped shivering and crying and to be handed back to the father.

I then went to help a young boy I had seen at the clothes tent who needed a warm top to put over the thin shirt he was wearing in the pouring rain. He was still shivering so I hugged him to me while we waited. After two attempts we finally managed to find a top and jacket in his size and topped it off with a rainproof poncho to keep him dry.

The chaos previously around me had subsided and I thought I could relax when felt a tug on my sleeve and turned to see a distressed woman mumbling 'baby, baby'. She had lost her child in the fray. Again with sign language, I managed to learn it was a 4-year old girl. We went around all the changing tents but no sign. The mother was getting more and more agitated so I found one of the more seasoned volunteers who said there were some unaccompanied children in the other receiving centre further along the beach and he kindly volunteered to take her there. (I saw her later and, thankfully, her child had been found).

Most of the refugees had by now changed into dry clothes and had started the walk to the transit camp outside the village where they could rest for an hour or two before boarding the buses to the registration camps in the south.

Thankfully the rain had finally stopped and after a welcome cup of hot tea, I helped clean up the beach and waited with my teammate who had volunteered to drive a mini-bus to transport a few of the more vulnerable refugees to the transit camp, including the young family we had helped. The young mother had come around a bit but was still in shock and would hopefully be allowed to stay in the transit camp overnight with her husband and children. As non-Syrians, their next stop would be the camp at Moria which is pitiful in spite of the good work being done there by the NGOs and volunteers. 

The next day when I was helping the Dirty Girls Of Lesvos Island to sort the wet clothes discarded by the refugees to be washed, dried and reused for clothes' distribution, I came across one of the boots I had taken off the baby. There was no sign of the other boot, so I couldn't resist taking it with me as a reminder of that baby and that day.
The young family were from Afghanistan and had walked carrying their bags and two nursing babies for four days without food to get to Turkey and onto a boat. They still have a tough journey ahead and I can only hope they find that better life for themselves and their children.”

Thank you, Halina, for letting me share your moving account and for putting your heart into everything you do. For more about efforts to help refugees arriving in Lesvos, check out https://www.facebook.com/lighthouserelief

Cruel Yule: Part 2 - Elf Service

Elvis was not a happy elf. He was sick of the same old, same old, night-after-night routine of sitting in circles around the green fires, drinking acorn mead, chewing on dried beaver hide and listening to Wilbur The Ancient churn out yet more tales from his glory days, back when the world still believed in the little people.

Trouble is, the world had moved on. Wilbur and his kind hadn’t. They still thought they were the ones that came to mind when the sons and daughters of men thought of small creatures of age-old wisdom, instead of the bat-eared syntactically-challenged Yoda with his nonsense about The Force.

Struggling to his feet, Elvis stretched to his full two-foot-six (he was tall by elvish standards) and scratched his belly. Dooley, his best friend since they’d graduated Carpentry College 42 short years ago, looked up from the deep and meaningful conversation he was trying to have with the luscious Entynne and shot him a quizzical look. Elvis dismissed his unspoken question with a wave of his hand.  

From his potato sack of honour in the corner, Wilbur the Ancient farted spectacularly and scratched his armpit, before starting the eight thousand and fifty-seventh telling of the tale how the Elvenfolk had chased the winter away for a few short months of the year, when the world was still young and trying to work out what it wanted to be when it grew up.

Elvis rolled his eyes, made a few “stab me now” motions to his old friend, and strolled over to the shed window. Cold light spilled over the sill but he couldn’t see what was on the other side. These sheds weren’t built with elves in mind. 

Looking around, his green eyes settled a on a collection of used paint pots, huddled together in the corner like sheep on a rainy hillside. That would do, he thought, and he dragged two over to beneath the window – one for each foot. They were enough to raise his gaze to just above the sill, giving him a good view of the bleak farmyard outside.

Over the squeal of the blizzard, he heard the beasts in the barn getting restless, beating their horns against the wooden walls and stamping their hooves on the beaten earth floor.  The steam borne of the warmth of living, breathing animals packed tightly together meeting the frigid night air rose out from under the eaves.

Across the yard, the flickering light of a dying fire threw exaggerated shadows. A small square lantern sat on the desk in front of the window, and in its glow lay Klaus, sprawled over piles of papers with a hand clasped firmly around a battered pewter tankard.

Elvis checked the yard again. The snow on the ground was undisturbed. No footprints led from the house to the barn and back again.

As if in confirmation of his growing suspicion, an angry bellow rose from the low wooden hut and the sound of antlers battering the door tore through the night.

Great, thought Elvis. The old man’s drunk himself into a stupour and forgotten to feed the reindeer. Tomorrow morning will be fun and games. If there's anything worse than a hermit with hangover, it's a herd of ravenous reindeer that haven’t been given their evening nightcap.

He hesitated, wondering what to do. A strong sense of duty tugged at his conscience, but just as strong were the fears planted in his elvish mind by bedtime stories of dark creatures hiding in the corners that moonlight couldn’t reach, just waiting for a foolish young elf to venture out and give them a midnight snack. 

Visibly trembling with indecision, Elvis wondered what would happen if he did nothing and left the beasts hungry for just one night. 
Just how bad would that be? 
After all, it wasn’t his job to….

...The sound of splintering wood made the decision for him. There was more than enough work lined up him and Dooley tomorrow without having to rebuild a barn.

Grabbing his jolly red and green hood (how he hated having to wear a uniform!), he crept over to the door and carefully opened it an inch. He stuck his pointed nose through the gap as if to smell for any danger, then pulled it open just enough to slip though without being noticed by Wilbur’s rapt (or snoring) audience.

Stepping gingerly into the open, his eyes as wide as saucers as he peered into the dark corners for hidden foes. Nothing moved but the snowflakes gusting through the air – any other creature with half a brain would be tucked up somewhere safe and warm, even the those who preyed on adventurous elves. Gulping the air as if to swallow a giant helping of courage, Elvis dashed in the direction of reindeer shed.

As he reached it, a creaking sound made him look back, to see the small but perfectly formed figure of Entynne creeping out of the elf shed and skittering across the yard to join him.

“Oi! What are you up to Enron?” she breathed as she reached the barn door where he was standing.

“Elvis.”

“Oh yeah, right. Sorry.”

“I think the old man’s passed out for the night without feeding the beasts.” An angry tap dance of hooves within confirmed his fears. “So I thought I’d better do something, otherwise there’ll be hell to pay in the morning.”

Lilac eyes stared at him in disbelief.

“But that’s not your job, Eldrin.”

“Elvis.”

“Yeah sorry.... 

So, d'ya want a hand?”

Now it was his turn to stare in disbelief. Gulping back his nerves, Elvis nodded thanks and pushed the door open to let the lovely Entynne enter the barn.

…want to know what happens next? Stayed tuned.

Cruel Yule: Part 1 - Ho? Oh! No.

He sighed as he threw another log on the fire and peered out the window into the inky black night. No street lights illuminated the scene, and any moon there was lay hidden by a thick layer of cloud draped over the landscape like an old grey army blanket. 

Whirling snowflakes darted frantically past the square of warm light his window cast on the icy ground. 

It was no frozen idyll outside the small homestead. It was wild winter’s night with nothing but howling winds and biting cold to greet any lone figure that might venture out.

But venture out he must. The livestock needed tending to, and his hired workers were wrapped up as warm as they could get in the caravans and shacks dotted around the farm yard. They were a hard-working group but close-knit and loathe to leave the comfort of their shelter after darkness fell. It was up to him to take care of the animals before shutting up for the night.

Klaus took another swig of the hot toddy from his tankard and grimaced. He needed to steel his resolve before heading out the door.

In a bit. But first, paperwork. He took another swig.

Belching like a bellicose bullfrog, he plonked his ample flannel-clad backside into the chair at his writing desk. The top was littered with countless envelopes from all over the world. Some unopened, some open but unread. Others lay in two growing piles at his feet, after being added to one of the two lists unfurled on top of the mountain of papers.  

He rubbed his eyes, smoothed his bushy eyebrows and patted his breast pocket for his reading glasses. Placing them on the end of his nose, he reached for the page on top of the unread pile and smoothed it out in front of him. He was met with an unintelligible jumble of numbers and letters, few of which made any sense to him. 

The clues were in the https, the coms, the //s and the ­­­­_s . 

No-one had the time or energy to do more than send links these days.

“I’m too old for this,” he growled as he fought a wave of acid rising in his throat.

Pushing the letters to one side, he reached for a pile of newspapers left unread over the past few weeks, his busiest time of the year. 

The headlines didn’t do much for his mood.

Hatred, fear, rejection and discord fought ads and fake sentiment to dominate the pages. Displaced thousands, planes shot out of the sky or raining death on those below. Random attacks on office parties and commuters at train stations. Waves of people fleeing the unthinkable, only to be met by suspicion and stereotypes. Heavily-armoured tanks sitting cheek-by-jowl with twinkling festive lights in city squares, armed police prowling airports, frantic shoppers elbowing their way past the cold and the homeless as they battled to grab the season’s must-have luxuries that would be forgotten before the first brave spring flowers pushed through the cold soil.

Too much stuff, not enough spirit. 

Even the Pope had gone on record saying all the lights, parties and presents would be nothing but a charade when the world had chosen hate and war.

“If he’s given up on it all, why should I bother?"growled the old man. “No-one believes in anything anymore.”

Kids were smart and sophisticated enough to talk about URLs, but they’d lost their wisdom. Worse, they’d lost their wonder.

Stupidity, consumption and greed was the new unholy trinity of the age. How else could anyone explain the screaming headline announcing the death of a man after he gold-plated his testicles? 
What the…?

Maybe he’d be better off just sitting at home and drinking his way through the wine cellar this year. If he just failed to report for duty for the annual ritual the world expected from him, would anyone even notice?

…to be continued…