Have yourself an elemental Christmas
I spent many Christmas holidays working on oil rigs. The deal was, I worked the holiday fortnight so my opposite number could hang out with his kids, then I got extra time off so I could take my bike and go ride in the sun for 3-4 weeks. Oil rigs are grim places at the best of times, and I found the best way to deal with the ‘festive’ season was simply to pretend it wasn’t happening.
Subsequent years living in China, witnessing orgiastic festive consumption divorced from even the shreds of religious meaning we retain in the west, served only to deepen my athieistic aversion to the whole sorry charade.
Viewed in that context, spending the Christmas weekend in magnificent isolation in a storm lashed stone hut on a Scottish beach, reading by candlelight and cooking over an open fire, listening to rain drumming on the roof and surf breaking over a shingle shore….what’s not to like?
2 months ago • 0 notes