Wings Of A Dove

They've been putting up Christmas decorations. It would suit my purposes, i.e. those of a little jolly, yuletime joshing, were I able to say "decoration", but despite festive austerity stalking the corridors of the local town halls and cuts being made, the decorations and lights have not all been left in their boxes in the town hall attics. No, there are some, but not as many. One of the decorations, a "Bones Festes" sign strung across the main road in Playa de Muro has been there for some weeks. Maybe they didn't bother taking it down last year. I can sort of understand such inertia. I once had a girlfriend who kept her Christmas tree up until June, by which time passers-by, seeing the fairy lights on, might have believed that it had been put early for the next Christmas, albeit that the tree itself had been somewhat denuded of needles.

There is now also in Playa de Muro a dove. A Christmas dove. The crane chaps seemed to be having a bit of a problem getting it attached. "To me. No, to you," or something like that. It remains to be seen whether it is in fact the Christmas dove as opposed to a dove and therefore one of a flock. (Do doves go in flocks? It's a flight of doves, isn't it?) And "seen" is appropriate as the length of time it will be illuminated has been reduced. They should issue dove lighting-up times. Nine to nine-thirty every evening, except Sundays, and the locals can troop along and stare at it, or drive along and stare at it and hammer into the car in front. But why exactly is there a dove? Was there one flapping around by the manger? I don't recall that there was. And had there been, it would have caused a rare old flap amongst the assembled Josephs, Marys, shepherds, donkeys and the rest. "The baby's trying to get to sleep. Can someone stop that bloody dove flying around."

In Alcúdia, on the Hidropark road to be precise, there are now six Christmas bells attached to lamp-posts. There were only four. Four that took an inordinate amount of time, per bell, to be placed onto the lamp-posts. The bell crew, having eventually got one in situ, would then clear off. It would appear that they were putting them up one at a time, one per day, like an advent calendar in reverse. Or maybe they were just idle and spinning out the job creation opportunity. It would have made better sense for them to have not bothered at all. Alcúdia town hall is meant to have rather more dosh floating around than most of the councils, but they've seen fit to only commission an ancient Christmas episode of Blue Peter as the guideline for the local first school to avoid using their mums' best tables in creating the non-chiming bells. Here's one I made earlier. Indeed they look as though they were made earlier. About thirty years ago.

I'm afraid that Christmas will not be like it normally is, which is to say that it will be more like it used to be when the Mallorcans didn't really bother with any of it. They didn't really bother with it, not because they don't do Christmas, because they do, but because Christmas is but one of a whole series of "bones festes" that take up a good month, starting with the Immaculate Conception and ending with Three Kings, followed swiftly by the January fiestas and then Carnival. You know, I reckon that that "Bones Festes" sign has been up all year.

* Bones Festes. The "Bones" is not pronounced as in Dr. McCoy "Bones", it is bon, as in "bon appetit" plus an "us" as someone in Yorkshire might pronounce it.


QUIZ
Today's title - Nutty Boys.

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