Advent

When we were young, Christmas meant a hot bath after school. The country bus would wind its way along bumpy roads all afternoon, delivering the wisest of men – farmer’s sons and butcher’s boys – home and out into the enveloping darkness.

We were the final stop, so late in the afternoon it was almost tea time. Each December, every Advent, our mum would run a hot bath daily, ready for the clatter of girls through the front door. Baths would always be followed by pyjamas, cotton trousers hung over the fireguard, towel dried hair dripping into boiled eggs and soldiers and a pudding of satsumas.

Long before Michael Buble, we had Bing Crosby and carols, the smell of burning peat and baking pudding – a rich once-a-year fruitiness peppering the air.

In this year of simple pleasures, it is important to consider not what we have lost, but what we have gained. To remember that the value of life is perhaps not measured in where you have travelled, but where you choose to rest your head and where you take your baths.

This Advent, so strange and seemingly unseen before, is in fact not that different to the one that started it all: travellers on the road looking for comfort and hospitality; just a humble bed; good food and that bags-down feeling of contentment. There is starry-eyed beauty to be found in simplicity, and although this Christmas will be very different from most, there is much to celebrate.

Life is like a chocolate orange – delicious, rich and best enjoyed in tiny morsels – most wondrous in small moments. Smoked salmon and poached eggs on granary toast as you look out across frosted fields; tea from a pot at the fireside; a pint in your hand, promising light, on a cold night.

There will be no Christmas parties, no post-night out delirium, but there will still be turkey and goose fat potatoes; double socks and wellies; long country walks.

There will still be smiles, cinnamon and shortbread; vintage reds and local cheddar; woollen blankets and pressed linen. This Advent, as we count down for another year, we must choose to see Christmas with child-like amazement, and find joy in celebrating small.

Throughout the Christmas period, we will be serving our all day December menu accompanied by daily specials.

Next summer, when we harvest this year’s winter barley, we will perhaps pause and consider what this year gave us –  beyond the pandemic.

An uncomfortable journey, the bright star of home, three gifts: time, patience and resilience. In amongst bountiful crops, there will be the echoes of prayers, whispered promises and remembered blessings.

What a year.