Christmas Island Adventure

In a tranquil part of Christmas Island where nobody goes except a few crabs, sits a little cottage.
Set back from the beach and surrounded by palm trees, the cottage sits quietly with a little fence around it.
There’s  a small garden around the cottage in which sits a deck chair.As the sun rises on Christmas Island, the sun’s orange light bathes the cottage in a warm glow.
Inside, Father Christmas is asleep.
As the sun begins to stream through the gap in his curtains, he rolls over and begins to stir.
As he wakes up, he looks out of the window to see the warm orange light of the sun.
By now the sun has begun to fade into the yellows which brings the  brightness and warmth characteristic of sunshine.He puts on his slippers and shuffles through to the little kitchen, where a comfortable armchair is waiting for him.
As he flicks on his kettle, he stretches and wonders what adventures he’ll have today.
He chuckles to himself as he remembers the adventures of a few weeks ago.
That little dog !
How it managed to chase the crab with the big claws, without getting pinched he’ll never know!
He remembers the faces of the children, the excitement in their eyes.

The click of the kettle boiling, disturbs his train of thought and the faces of the children fade away.

As he sits in his wooden arm chair sipping his tea, he ponders what he’ll have for breakfast.
In his mind, he sees plates of bacon and eggs, with beans and hash browns, rounds of toast and more tea.
He sighs as he pats his well rounded figure, the moment has past and he knows that it’ll be porridge and toast again.
After all it will only be a few weeks until he has to head north back to the factory.
After that there’s only a weeks or two before the big push to get everything ready for Christmas.

Having finished his breakfast he walks back through the cottage to his bedroom.
You may be forgiven for thinking that Father Christmas dresses in his usual red suit all the time.
He really does love that suit, it’s like a comfy old pair of slippers that you can’t do without.
But down here in the bright sunshine, it’s too warm for that thick red suit!

He has a range of lovely shirts and T-Shirts that are much more suited to warm sunny weather.
The worst part about not wearing his red suit, is choosing what he will wear each day. He misses that red suit when he’s on his holidays !

He opens his wardrobe takes the nearest shirt and quickly begins to get dressed.
As he is just folding his pyjamas, a sudden noise from outside his open window distract him and he leans out, to see what is going on.
On the beach he can see two big crabs fighting over a bottle near to some driftwood on the beach.
If you’ve never been to Christmas Island, you may not know that it’s famous for red crabs.
There are lots and lots of them all living there.
What’s worse is they walk all over the island, they’re not confined to the beach.
They get everywhere!

That’s why there’s a little fence all around the cottage, it’s not to keep the visitors out.
It’s to keep the crabs out.
Imagine those pinchy little pests invading your house in the night….
Some crabs are quite big and they’re very happy to drag your things back to their little burrows.
Worse still they can stretch up on their back legs and then pinch quite high up.
You wouldn’t want any toes sticking out of the bed, would you !!
The fence and gate around the little cottage fixed that though !

Father Christmas strolls out of the little cottage and along the brief track down onto the beech.
His approach does not disturb the fighting crabs and so he picks up a stick from the edge of the beach as he walks towards them.

The crabs aren’t really interested in the bottle, it just happened to be in the way as they wave their claws at each other and sometimes hit each other with a leg or claw.
He uses his stick to move the bottle out of the way picks it up.

Father Christmas tries to keep his little beach tidy.
It’s amazing how much rubbish he collects, just drifting in to his little part of the island.
As he walks a little further along the beach something twinkles in the sunlight.
He bends down and picks up one of his spoons. Pesky crabs he mutters to himself.

As he turns around his toe kicks the corner of something hard.
Stupid crabs he mutters, what now….
He lifts his foot to see the corner of a small wooden box sticking out of the sand.
It takes him a few minutes to dig the sand back from the edges of the box.
Soon he can see the small, battered box which he picks up and heads towards his cottage.

As he walks the crabs are retreating. The warm sun is not great when you’re living in a shell.
Dried out leg joints can’t be fun for a crab, so they hide in their burrows during the warmest parts of the day.

Father Christmas shuts his gate, behind him and goes back into his cottage.
Placing the box on the kitchen table he sits in his large wooden chair.

Excitedly he brushes the sand off the front and looks to see if he can work out how to open the box.
Although there’s a type of key hole, he cant see any hinges, or work out where the lid is.

He places the box carefully on the table and does what he always does at times like this…
… he makes a cup of tea !

Sipping his tea he ponders that little wooden box.
He shakes it and it feels like there’s something inside.
Who knows what it could be, he must get it open, he can smell a mystery….

Join Father Christmas as he solves the mystery of the Puzzle Box.

The next installment will be posted very soon….