Xmas in the tropics

The worst thing about Christmas is that you have to go shopping and buy stuff for people you don't care about - like your friends and family - because you know that if you don't, you won't get any stuff from them.

- BEN TROVATO CUT&RUN

Anyway, I have fled Paris. Too cold. Too many people. Too much culture. After increasingly desperate calls to Costa Rica in which I whined and begged, Loinfruit and Bloke reluctantly agreed to have me for Christmas.

"With some fava beans and a nice Chianti?" I asked.

There was a long silence before she cut the connection. Obviously not a Hannibal Lecter fan.

This isn't my first Christmas in the tropics with my daughter and her husband, but it will be the first spent with the in-laws. Not mine, obviously. The restraining order is still in place.

These are his parents and things are bound to take some kind of turn. For a start, they drink wine, which never ends well. Also, they are Belgians. Not the normal kind, from Brussels.

These ones met in the Congo many years ago. Bloke's father did or said something to upset Mobutu so they fled south under cover of darkness with their two toddlers, upsetting governments along the way, until they settled in Namibia, where they eventually upset all the wrong people and bought a house in Costa Rica.

They haven't upset the authorities here, but it's just a matter of time.