A Christmas Story

Feel free to add to this - wild imaginations welcome but try and maintain some sort of consistency with the narrative!

Christmas Eve, the col between Tryfan and Bristly Ridge, dusk draping Sandra's tent quickly, then darkness. The occasional headlight flaring far below on the A5 like a struck match. Sandra watched the tiny stove, fizzing belligerently, as set on heating the pale pasta as she was on forgetting Steve.

Forgetting him and Christmases past, bigger, warmer stoves in welcoming family kitchens, when life used to be simple.

She stirred the pasta, thinking about simplicity, wondering if that was why she was here with the winter wind hurdling the wall behind her then burrowing, pushing at the pegs, probing the fabric, trying to get in to scare her.

It used to be able to do that - bad weather, high winds on the hill, storms, vicious lightning that made her cast away her trekking poles in terror. But Steve's affair, Steve's leaving, had drained her of fear, had spun, trampled, mangled the last vestiges of it from her, forcing it out in tears until she'd run dry.

And Christmas had still come around. So how, Sandra wondered, did a 53 year-old childless, divorced woman celebrate this first Christmas on her own? How did she get back to coping with life? How did she find who she used to be?

Clearing out the detritus of her marrriage she had come across her Duke of Edinburgh Award in a dim attic and held up the yellowed page. The first memory it triggered was the feeling of freedom she'd had as a teenager - freedom, independence, confidence. a person. A real person.

Three days later, here she was, tired, hungry, elated, sad, listening to the fearsome wind.

Multi member (fnurr fnurr).

Sorry, spoilt the flow of your artistic juices.

In the next tent was Tarquinne, a giant sea-cucumber, sleeping next to his wife Bellonda, a giant nipple. Their stove was fizzling merrily as they cooked chili and they spoke in longing tones of many happy years spent together on the D of Ed expeds where they first met, camping along together with a nice woman they met called Sandra.

Imagine their surprise when ...

..a startled shriek pierced the cold, dank air. They heard frantic scuffling and moments later Sandra appeared at the door of their tent.
"Please let me in" she said, "he's out there... in my tent"
"Calm down Sandra" said Tarquinne. "Here, have a brew and tell us all about it"
"Well, she said. "I was just adding the kidney beans to the bolognese sauce when there was a rustling at the doorway. I looked up and there was a ghostly bearded face peering into my tent. Thank goodnees my Quasar has two doorways. I scuttled out of the back as quickly as I could."
"I expect it was just Cameron McNeish on the scrounge" said Bellonda. "I've heard he's quite partial to a bit of pasta."
"Nah, he'll be in the highlands this week" said Tarquinne. "The snow conditions are much better there."
"True, but the Devil's Appendix in the Kitchen has not been so good as this in years" said Bellonda, looking lovingly at her crampons.
"I don't mean to be rude" said Sandra, "but whoever it is, please will you help me get him out of my tent. He's probably eaten half my supper by now!"
"Of course" said Tarqinne pulling on his boots. "I'll just stick a couple of plastic bags on my feet if you don't mind" said Bellonda, "I can't be bothered to dress properly, and I'm sure this will only take a minute".
The three of them boldly stepped out into the bracing wind and took the few strides over to Sandras tent.

Bellonda had made what could have been a fatal error. As she strode purposefully over to Sandra's tent to eject the intruder within, her soles (covered in Tesco sandwich bags, remember, gentle reader) made contact with some verglas and she started an inexorable slide towards the edge of the col. 'Tarquinne!!' she screamed, 'Help me! I don't want to end up on the A5!'

A bearded face peeped out of the flap of sandra's tent to see what the noise was.

The climbs back in his doss bag and goes back to sleep............;o)

Tarquinne rushed panic-stricken into the darkness. By the light of his Myo 5 he could just pick out the stricken figure of Bellonda, suspended by the right shoulder-strap of her negligee above a 200 ft sheer drop.
"How can that be!" he cried. "There is no 200ft cliff below Bwlch Tryfan!"
"There is now" said Sandra. "It was intalled last month by Guy Proctor after Piers Pickard's article on unknown crags in Snowdonia. Put the decimal point in the wrong place apparently. It worked out cheaper than the legal costs when Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue Team threatened to sue."

Tarquinne lammed the pick of his axe towards Bellonda.

"Eeeeeek!" she screamed, as it narrowly missed her and skilfully ensnared her negligee strap. He hauled on the leash and thanked God that earlier that day he'd called into Cotswold's in Betws and bought the 'Stretch Armstrong You-never-know Extendable Leash'. As he reeled her in, he glimpsed round and exclaimed, "Bloody hell! It's Sandra, isn't it? We were just talking of you in the FONDEST terms..."

His voice trailed off as their eyes met and he felt as though he wanted to disappear into the languid pools that faced him.

"Now, then, Darling," addressing his wife, "You know that to go out wearing placcy bags on your feet is a fool's trick!"
Bellonda hung her head in shame.

The beardy face was still peeping out through Sandra's tent flaps. It DID bear a remarkable similarlity to a certain Mr McNeish. But in a gingery sort of way.

Sandra escorted Bellonda and Tarquinne safely back to their sleeping bags, thinking that it would be a good idea never to ask for their help again. Once they were asleep, Sandra returned to her tent determined that Cameron, or whoever it was, was not going to get the better of her. Resolutely she ripped back the zip to find.... no-one! Her tent was empty, the intruder had gone, and only a pile of dirty Trangia pans remained.