The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

Well, is it or isn't it? Christmas is a funny old time. On the one hand, it's full of promise: bursting at the seams with anticipation, celebration and lashings of jollity. At the same time, the churning emotional tide of enforced merriment can turn your course through day-to-day life (for yes, it still goes on) into an uneasy journey to navigate.

For a start, sad memories seem to be sharper at this time of year than at any other. It was on this day, ten years ago now, that my wonderful grandma had the stroke that led to her dying some three weeks later. I spent that Christmas in the hospital with her, sleeping on a makeshift cushion by her bed. Needless to say, my family barely went through the motions of anything close to a celebration that year; what little joy we managed, we mustered together for the sake of my nieces, who were at that stage little children. Then there was the last Christmas I spent with Judy, my dad's long-term cohort, at her home in Hampshire just three months before she died of the brain tumour that she'd lived with for too many months already. Margy, Judy, God rest your blessed souls; since you left us, Mike's mum has joined you (again, not long before Christmas last year), and just a few short weeks ago, Thumper absconded this mortal coil too. But you know, despite how this post seems to be shaping up, I'm really not being gloomy about all this. Christmas - and the forthcoming end of 2007 - is, amongst everything else, a time to look back, take stock and count your blessings.

I still miss the people (and the animals) who have physically left me as life has rolled along - I always will; I don't need a calendar to bring them back to the forefront of my mind. I miss too the people who, although still (I hope) sharing this planet with me, have veered off the course that once insured our paths crossed regularly: the close family member, for example, who's behaviour has been so dreadful this year that he doesn't even warrant a Christmas card, let alone a gift, when I go to spend time with the Liverpool lot between Christmas and New Year (mind you, this was a man who, when visiting my house last spring, declared the bottle of really, really good Prosecco that I'd carefully selected to accompany our feast to be the signal for 'time to go home'. "She's bringing out the cheapskate plonk", he said; "let's p**s off". And so, I let him do just that). Also in this category (albeit for vastly different reasons, the person in question being a vastly different individual to the pleb I've just seethed about), 2007 saw me being forced to wave goodbye to someone I thought would always be in my life. Sadly, the end of that particular friendship came about as a result of a blog post right here. I have no intention of going into any further detail; suffice to say that the final misunderstanding should never, ever have happened, but unfortunately, it did. I guess every passing year brings with it several passings of one sort or another. However, as with all things, there is balance; I've loved so much of 2007, it's with a very grateful heart that I'll wave goodbye to it in just a few days time.

So, before that happens, I'd like to briefly recall a few of 2007's Wonderful Moments (in no particular order): mum's birthday, April 2007. The WOMAD festival: rain most certainly did not stop play. Mike's impromptu birthday party (January): fresh out of hospital (nothing serious, as it turned out - thank you, God, for that one, too) and straight into the chocolate cake. Mike himself, as a stand-alone highlight. A week-long holiday in Honfleur in June, with My Favourite People Ever. New Friends: Marty and Wayne - they gave living in Bath a whole new dimension. Dublin with Vicki and Tony at the beginning of this month; Luxembourg/Germany a couple of weeks later. Time spent in the Marais with my dad. Angela's party, and the trip down memory lane that I took with my mum very early the next day. Sol's film premiere in Liverpool. Thumper, for most of the year at least. Music: Foreigner live, Rufus Wainwright's new album, Bruce Springsteen in the pipeline. Books: Bret Easton Ellis' 'Lunar Park' (I only got around to reading it this year, but it was fab), Roddy Doyle's 'The Deportees', Ian McEwan's 'Chesil Beach'. Our recent soiree. Fabulous food, wonderful work, incredible friends. Ah, you know what? It's been a great year. And hey, it's not over yet ...