Fed up...

For any calorie counting, sugar watching, fat-free-food-obsessed traveller, the New Planet is a land mine waiting to explode and cover the unsuspecting being in creme filled chocolate. Walking down the streets of any small town or village, the nostrils are assaulted with a variety of smells guaranteed to drive any moderately hungry person off their head. Sweet and salty, nutty and nasty, fruity and fantastic, there is something about the mixture of aromas that meander about narrow lanes that cannot quite be described. For someone coming from a Southernmost Colony where thousands teeter on the brink of starvation, there is an almost wanton array and selection of culinary delights on display at this stage of the planet's orbit around the sun.

The vast displays of cocoa-bean delights that appear at Yuletide served up in industrial strength sized boxes, are surely designed by some skinny sadist monster from the depths, as who can resist the shiny wrappings, the bows, the bangles and the spangles that beckon from every shelf as the festive season draws near? Not me, that's for sure. Boxes and bags and bow bedecked nut, nougat and caramel filled treats lurk and call very loudly to any cocoaholic brave enough to enter a shop at this time of year.

How will I survive the tempations; the dairy products so artistically arranged on small wooden pallettes, the skyscraper-sized displays of every kind of alcoholic beverage known to mankind (ten for the price of one as if every being is intent on getting so inebriated they fall head first into the trifle), the arrays of sauces and snacks, frozen mini-cupcakes, sausages rolled in pastry, skewered sea creatures dipped in bee nectar, immense fowls of every form stuffed within one another, and don't even get me started on the expectations of the undeveloped beings who appear to think that their parents' treasure is unending and that whatever their hearts desire will be bought, packed, wrapped, bedecked and be-bowed and placed beneath the yuletide bowers. How can beings resist the multipacks of powders and potions and paints that appear on the shelves of retail outlets at this time of year? Well, I'll tell you, they can't!

And let me not forget to mention the often garish multi-coloured strings of illuminations that twine and twirl and dangle around lamp posts and trees and garden fences, that drip off eaves and strangle mantles. Small, large and gigantic fronds of fir (or plastic) hang heavy with the weight of the glass baubles and bells and strings of silver or gold or green or pink, a veritable overdose of glitter and glow and yes, it does warm the cockles of one's heart (unless one is particularly cynical and annoyed at the disappearance of the TRUE meaning of this season). In the dark damp nights, amidst the twinkles and sparkles and festive cheer, a traveller from the Southernmost Colony longs for the bright sunshine of nature and family and friends, and experiences pangs unlike any that occur during the previous rotations of the moons.

Fortunately, this season does not last too long (although it certainly begins far too early) and once the geegaws and niknaks are packed away once more, life on the New Planet resumes once more, normal and natural...until the first cocoa-clad bunny comes hopping into view...