Cherries are juicy little harbingers of the festive season, says Wyn Drabble. Photo / File
Cherries are juicy little harbingers of the festive season, says Wyn Drabble. Photo / File
COMMENT
One of my signs of a fast-approaching festive season may not be the same as yours.
Yes, of course I see the giant Santa atop the supermarket. He is held in place by guy ropes which, alas, are dead giveaways that he's not real. But he's not my mainsign anyway.
Nor are the Christmas carols on endless play rotation in shops and malls. "We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas and spend your cash here."
It used to be that one of the sure signs that Christmas was coming was the huge number of Christmas cards arriving in your mailbox. Now, thanks to sweeping changes in the postal delivery system, these don't arrive until January or February.
And yet another sign is the growing goodwill shown by Mrs D to the world's bird population. In true Christmas spirit she gives them currants, sultanas, cranberries and birdseed. They now come back later in the day for the second sitting.
A speckled thrush has become a regular and for some reason waits on one leg. It has two but appears to think looking one-legged gets more sympathy and therefore more sultanas.
But my special seasonal sign is one that appears on the roadside. "Cherries". Cherries are juicy little harbingers of the festive season and even though they are a summer fruit they still look Christmassy and fit with that Northern Hemisphere Yuletide vibe we tend to cling to.
They even make perfect edible Christmas tree decorations. But don't eat the tinsel.
The local sign that has really made a mark this year and has already been around the globe via the internet is this one: "Cherr'ys". There's (or ther'es) another side to this sign but you'll have to wait a little for that.
We had been alerted to the sign by a local but a day or two later we received an email from a son who was in Amsterdam at the time. It was to tell us that a "Cherr'ys" sign existed.
Wyn Drabble
It seems a local friend of his had also spotted it and sent it to him so by now it will be all over the globe via TwitFace, InstaBook and Rolypolygram.
We were able to email back to our son informing him that there were two sides to this sign. If his friend had been travelling in the opposite direction, the sign she would have seen was "Cherry's".
This sign is perhaps good evidence that we would better off doing away with the apostrophe completely. Apostrophe use was never meant to be a bowl of cherries but other languages manage perfectly well without it. Withou't it. Why couldn't we?
So appearance of the "Cherries" signs is a harbinger for me but, just like the "Cherr'ys/Cherry's" sign, it has two sides. The negative side is that it indicates to me that it's time once again to clean the windows of the house.
Somehow it has grown into a tradition that, in December, I clean the windows. It is probably linked to society's strange seasonal desire to have everything "done by Christmas".
So I toil with suds and squishy mops and elbow grease and, as far as I can see, the only benefit is that, after I have finished my work on the windows, you can see through them.
Then, of course, comes the good bit. I sit down with a frosty beer in hand. It's my reward. It's the cherry on top.
Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.
