The night before ….

Caitlin was awake.  She ought to have been asleep and it should have been easy, swaddled in the softness of her winceyette sheets under the gentle weight of her quilted eiderdown. The sheets smelt faintly of washing powder and outdoors drying and the eiderdown radiated a soporific warmth.  But Caitlin was far too excited to succumb to the bed linen’s sedative effects and was, instead, fully immersed in the delightful sensations particular to this night.

Pots clattered in the kitchen below. The clatterer summoned up wave upon wave of aromas that spiralled upwards towards the insomniac. Caitlin tried to identify the components of the brew. Overriding all the delights were the sausage rolls. Caitlin’s nose judged them to be just about ready to come out of the oven, her salivating mouth judged them ready to be eaten.  Caitlin imagined devouring them hot, she savoured the flakiness of the pastry and the herby meatiness of the interiors - and suddenly, the cold in the queue earlier at the pork butchers was worth it. Caitlin shivered as she remembered her chapped hands and frozen feet and nestled more deeply into the winceyette.

The warmth made her sleepy. The sounds and tastes and smells of the night floated in and out of her consciousness. Once she heard the recalcitrant tear of cellotape. It sounded like a long piece, one that might be needed for a really big present. Caitlin felt her lips widen into a smile.  She was 9 years old. She wasn’t stupid, and she knew that Santa wasn’t real. Nevertheless, she was absolutely certain that she heard the sound of sleighbells as she finally drifted off to sleep.

 

 

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