April Fool's Day of the year.

Did you know that there are four Christmases in a year?

It’s to do, apparently with the four poles; there are four poles.

The poles might be equinoxes and so it follows that there are four Christmases – as long as you accept that Christmas in this case means something different to Christmas in the more accepted religious case.

It’s confusing and I don’t even remember exactly which religion the person telling me this represented, nor how we met nor where.

But I know I had just waded across a shallow river, or crossed over on London Bridge.

You see I don’t remember the crossing only the choice that was presented.

It all started in the cinema where I had gone to see Monsters in Black – a sort of space/alien/remake of Men In Black.

For some reason there was an interval.

I haven’t been to the cinema when there has been an interval since I was a child; it along with level crossing gates, Karen Wilmot and Sundays disappeared suddenly between primary school and University.

During the interval I became great friends with the stranger sitting next to me who had asked me what I would like to drink and I had said St Emillion wine before she gave me coca cola.

I don’t remember leaving the cinema nor drinking the coke and I certainly didn’t see the second part of the film but I had met the woman’s friend or possibly daughter and we had expressed mutual shines to each other before finding ourselves together, heading home and needing to cross a river that certainly hadn’t been there when I had gone to bed.

Wading would necessitate wetting and I think that is what we both desired, so maybe we met the next person in a temple after ritual cleaning. That would have meant we were in the appropriate condition for the anointment and gift giving that ‘Christmas’ entailed.

We were handed two small white trays that could be used for intimate massage. You held the tray toward the other and they explored and massaged the surfaces of the trays.

Imagine having the palm of your hand deeply explored by someone who wants to know you in the Biblical sense.

And then we were at a neighbour’s house and the intimacy we had enjoyed was an embarrassment to others and where the washing up needed to be done.

So intimately explored palms of the hands did the washing up and that’s when I decided to wake up.