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[The Blog of Phileas Fogg: 1883 onwards] Christmas Day 1885

From: Harry Hayfield <harryhayfield~at~googlemail.com>
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 2009 14:20:48 -0800 (PST)
To: jvf~at~gilead.org.il

If yesterday was busy, up until lunchtime today was a madhouse. At just
before eight o'clock we were woken by a shriek of delight as William
opened his stocking from Saint Nicholas and a few moments later he came
running into our room and expressed his thanks at the top of his voice.
He has always wanted a train set and sure enough Saint Nicholas
delivered and I dare say that he will spend a large amount of time
between that and making snowmen outside

That was our cue to get up and start on the Christmas dinner. Even with
William and the Doctor lending a hand, the actual preparations were a
logistical nightmare. The turkey had to be stuffed, buttered and
baconed (which took a good hour due to it's size) but once in the oven
it could basically be forgotten about, which brought us onto the bread
sauce. Nothing too fancy of course.

By midday, things were progressing nicely. The Doctor decided that our
Christmas pudding wasn't old enough and so aged it by another two years
just for good measure and that was put in to cook, and Passepartout
aided by myself and William started to lay the table for the lunch to
be served at two o'clock (which it was on the dot).

During lunch, we swapped tales of our past explorations and the Doctor
related the tale of a world he had visited called Tronjiworld. I was
going to ask more about it when the pudding arrived. Passepartout lit
the brandy and when it erupted into blue flames I expressed my delight
at my wife's best pudding yet.

Now as you might expect by the time lunch was over it was already
starting to get dark, and so after drawing the curtains we set about
opening our presents. The Doctor also gave some presents to us. He gave
me an atlas (that according to the frontispiece will not be published
until 1890), Passepartout recieved an alarm clock, my wife a set of
cooking pots and pans and William recieved a telescope (which he
immediately set up in the bay window). As he was doing that I asked the
Doctor to explain about Tronjiworld.

Tronjiworld it seems is in what the Doctor called a "parallel
dimension". I don't quite understand the term myself but I think that
means that it exists in another part of space that we cannot see. It's
ruled by a person called the Great Eek and when the Doctor visited he
had a problem. Bits of his world were losing colour and happiness, but
thanks to children like William it was possible to restore that
happiness. The only downside to this was that Tronji I (a habitant of
the world) was also in an unhappy situation here on Earth (nothing
major, things like cartwheels getting stuck in the mud or washing lines
too low), but that when happiness was created in Tronjiworld it enabled
something from their world to swap with something in our world. All
very well and good you might think, except that this swap caused the
happiness levels in the affected part of Tronjiworld to fall again and
so they had to be put back to rights again. But when they were, the
habitants were able to rejoin the rest of Tronjiworld and sing their
song which appears to go "Nik, nak, nor. Nik, nak, nor!"

Just then William let out another shriek of delight as he had found the
moon. We all gathered round to look at it and even though we did walk
on it for a few hours, I sighed as I realised that no one would ever
walk on it again.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that" said the Doctor, and I have to admit he had a
definite shine in his eyes, so I am slightly wondering what
this "special Boxing Day trip" he says he has planned for us tomorrow
might involve.

--
Posted By Harry Hayfield to The Blog of Phileas Fogg: 1883 onwards on
12/25/2009 09:59:00 PM

Received on Sun 27 Dec 2009 - 10:53:57 IST

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