To someone who hasn't lived in a foreign country for a considerable amount of time before, Bovril cravings sound bizarre at best, and moronic at worst. I can assure you, as can every expat dotted across our beautiful globe, Bovril cravings (or whatever wonderfully British condiment you choose) are real and painfully poignant.
Imagine, it is a bitterly cold day in your foreign country of choice, you've got dew drops hanging from your rosy nose and you need something to warm your old cockles up. Hot Bovril is your only solution, yet you cannot get hold of this prized possession for love nor money because this fabulous European land has never heard of the sticky brown magic. Genuine whale tears fill my poor eyes just thinking of this horrid predicament.
Imagine, you wake up, fuzzy headed and blurry eyed from a night on the town with the natives, drinking booze brewed from home grown potatoes in someone's grandma's kitchen. You need toast. Toast and Bovril will save the day. You know exactly what you need and you need it pretty urgently because you might end up redecorating your bedroom otherwise, but then the fatal reality dawns on you. No Bovril. No toast.
Now, fast forward a couple of months.
Imagine, home. England. Land of dreams. Sitting in your kitchen, your stomach rumbles; you're not hungry, only peckish. What to eat? Currywurst? Brotchen? The list continues with mundane options, then with jaw dropping breath taking astounding magical phenomenal exhilarating wondrous realisation, you remember that Bovril is in the cupboard and Best-of-Both is in the bread bin. No words can describe that moment. Nothing in the world has ever tasted that good.
With panging emotions that come flooding with the beefy goodness, you remember your Grandad, cockling, long dog walks, fighting with your siblings, Norfolk, hangovers at Woolly D, Nan's gravy, Sunday lunch, midnight feasts, smoky pubs, rainy summer picnics, school dinners. Memories all over the shop with one delicious message:
you are home.youarehome.YOU. ARE. HOME.
Bovril, you are the meaning of home and I love you.
Christmas time, mistletoe and wine. Well, actually, lots of wine. So much wine that today I have the mother of all hangovers, a red wine stained hat, no money and an empty bottle collection on my bedside table that would put any hardened alcy to shame.
I think I can speak for many households in Great Britain when I say, it's the same story every year. One vat of mulled wine and several G&Ts later, Grandad is merrily chewing the ears off my sister with enthralling wartime stories; the dog has nicked Mum's chocolates and has emptied the contents of his stomach on her prized Persian rug; the boys are close to a punch-up due to dubious rule breaking in the Snooker/Darts Championship and Dad has fallen asleep, open mouthed on the sofa whilst claiming to be watching a repeat of 'Darling Buds of May'.
I don't think anyone actually looks forward to this tried and tested formula for Christmas day, it's all a bit too stressful. The festive spirit is just a bit too much for us to handle, so alcohol is used liberally to lubricate everyone's moods so we can maybe start to resemble a happy, 'normal', functioning family. Or maybe just get us so blotto we don't care that Grandad's telling us for the 500th time that he liberated Jersey from the Germans, or that his false teeth keep falling out when he talks.
Pondering on this Christmas' alcohol abuse, and being fully motivated by a tequila-gin-wine-Guinness cocktail hangover, I have decided to give it all up for a month in aid of a charity that strives to help and transform lives, Cancer Research UK. It's all a bit silly really when you think about it; most of the population getting drunk because we can't handle familial awkwardness, while others are fighting with everything they've got for the chance to argue about the rules of Monopoly next year. Perspective, in this situation, is very sorely needed.
So, I'm going to do it. Friends, family, strangers; this girl is going to be G&T free for the entirety of January. This may sound like a walk in the park, but for me - this is huge. How am I going to survive a day at school without the promise of some Amber Nectar when I get home? £5 or £50, I don't care how much I raise, as long as it goes to help someone that needs it more than me.
Christ knows how well this is going to go.
Wish me luck.
With only ten days 'til the long awaited return home to my wonderful Heimat, England - aka magical-place-of-dreams, fifteen days 'til Christmas and twenty one days 'til the End of the World (depending on which rumour you listen to), it is all too easy to lose touch with reality and become caught up in a whirlwind of self inflicted moroseness.
It is a commonly known fact that I am a whinger - as are 99.9% of the British population. Nothing is ever 'alright', even though we insist on a daily basis that it is. It's snowing on Christmas Day for the first time in fifty years, "Bloody freezing"; it's a blazing hot day, the cricket's on and the Pimms is flowing from magical pop up springs, "Too bloody hot for my liking..."; it's raining after a four week midsummer drought, "This country is bloody awful - always bloody raining." Christmas is a prime example of just how whiney and ridiculous we all are, and I will put myself forward as the chief candidate for Seasonal Hypercondriac Syndrome.
Let's be perfectly honest, my life is fabulous, yet I fail to see on a daily basis the utter virtues of the lifestyle I lead.
Reasons my life is wicked:
1. My family are healthy, happyish, and I love them. We throw strops over monopoly, and it's cool. They are the never ever ending link between my past and future. 2. My friends are healthy, happyish and I love them. We do not argue (apart from whether sand in Fuetaventura is imported from the Saraha or not) and they are always armed with buckets loads of gin&tonic formed support. 3. I live the dream; it's snowing, there's a Christmas market at the end of my road, I live in Germany, every weekend is an adventure. 4. It's Christmas. 5. I go to University and have unbounded chances in life. 6. I am young and can get away with doing ridiculous things, such as locking myself in a toilet cubicle for 20 minutes 'cause I'm too drunk, without it having a serious effect on anyone. (Sorry and thank-you to Sam for rescuing me and paying my wine bill...)
Reasons my life is pants:
1. I miss my family. 2. I miss my friends. 3. I'm dreaming of England and Bovril and bramley apple sausages and chicken pie and Walkers crisps and salted butter and custard creams and Crunchy Nut Cornflakes and crumpets and Wispa bars... 4. I haven't bought my Christmas presents yet. 5. I have so much Uni work to do I feel like I could jump into a pool of it and have a little swim around. 6. I am 22 in less than a month, which renders it valid for me to be affectionately called 'Granny Joanney', 'Gran Attack' and 'Joan' by my friends.
As we can see from this clear layout of 'Wicked vs. Pants', wicked wins every time, yet I seem to only ever mention the negative. Is this a British psyche? Or am I just miserable?
As I look out of my little window to the torrents of snow cascading from the sky, listening to the sounds of teenage boys lobbing lumps of snow at squealing gaggles of teenage girls, my immediate thoughts are of disgust and despair at the prospect of having to venture into the icy nightmare and negotiate my way through the hoards of hormonal snowball fights. But why? Whilst reassessing this situation, I scald myself for being such a bore and grumpy guts. What would the seven year old Joanna make of my current opinions? Surely it is clear as gin that snow is perfectly beautiful; virgin white, dousing everything with untouchable silence and reverence, and that the high pitched screams are just as pure; sounds of utter delight and excitement and potential love. Shaking my head, I dismiss these thoughts as vile; snow serves one decent observation - how many people actually piss up the side of trees.
I am not sure how we tackle this Seasonal Hypercondriac Syndrome - it seems too deep rooted in our mindsets. As we hustle and bustle and jostle our way through the shops in the dying days before the day of all days, it seems that all we can think about is the immediate and impending stress of it all. In this one rare moment of mental clarity during a horrific snowstorm tucked in a remote corner of SW Germany no-one at home even cares to know exists, I think of all the people hustling and bustling and jostling for a bargain, and want to cry.
Christmas is about love - every advert and television programme and film rams that point down our throats - but what does that actually mean? I highly doubt that it is practically slapping the woman next to us in contest for the last pair of cashmere gloves in the John Lewis sale. So why do we forget? Why can't we all just wake up on Christmas morning and appreciate the loved ones we have neglected for the rest of the year? Is it so hard to forget the presents, and the money, and the food, and the stress, and see the bliss in the eye of a stranger when we do something kind for them?
There are no conclusions to my observations, only vague and distant hopes.
I hope to forget my adult cynicism and dissatisfaction. I hope to love more and moan less. I hope to one day fully enjoy the beauty of snow. I hope that everyone this Christmas forgets their made up and imagined problems, remembers everything good that has ever happened to them and has a bloody good time.
