It is Christmas Eve (in the workhouse) and Gerd Stopp (alias Santa Claus) has just delivered (via an intermediary) twenty wonderful plants to my door. I have been glum for a few days thinking that my euros had gone missing or my parcel had been delivered to more deserving folk in Bali or Taipei, but then the doorbell rang (strange that - it has been broken for months) and there was one wise man (his name tag read, Frank Incense) with a beautiful package in lustrous brown cardboard and glowing khaki tape. I brushed his palm with a twenty pound note, put it back in my extremely dusty wallet, and wished him a very merry Christmas - I darted inside and ripped the wrapping to shreds.
Twenty tiny pots with beautifully crafted caps emerged from the polystyrene and newspaper packaging and I was certain that Father Christmas existed.
Merry Christmas one and all ... tis the season to be extremely jolly.
