Christmas At Sea

Once I was kicked by a mule, as I was remonstrating, a dog interfered and bit my ankle. There is something deeply embarrassing to lose arguments to animals. Guayaquil, Colombia, I hadn´t gone ashore for fun but to buy food stuff for the crew. Since it was a few days before Christmas and even our Moslems crew liked something extra. It is difficult to get into the festive mood when it is hot and I had been bitten and kicked, Jesus was born in a barn which is a good place to be a cold winter night as animals exude good warmth. I marvel of the nativities of Joseph, a finer man than me; a person unsung through times. Chicken for Christmas, not pork, in every mess hall there were a coloured trees, since the Islamists do not drink there was peace on earth; I forgave the mule and the bloody, yellow monster of a dog. And silently the old tramper ploughed the sea on her way to Jamaica, where the seaman´s priest would invite us Christians to sing psalms and hand out little presents of socks and gloves knitted by kind ladies back in Norway.