Sat here in the shed my immediate thought is that I need a haircut. What again do I hear you say? You had one in the summer and it is only Christmas. Yes yes I know but I need a hair cut. I also need a shave, some exercise and to cut down on eating junk and drinking beer, wine and gin.
I’m probably not alone.
I want to do most of the above, the exception being the drinking bit. We have a lot of catching up to do in the pub and there is a time and place for that particular strand of abstinence. We need an out and out pissup. Not a remote virtual job over zoom. One where people crack crap jokes and everyone laughs even though the joke is probably not funny. One where you lose track of how many pints you have had or what is sensible or even whose round it is.
Then we go for a ruby. And get a taxi home even though it is eminently walkable.
Snorrapnin. We have forgotten what it was like to live a normal life doing normal things. It’s almost as if we are each in our own spaceship on a long journey to distant galaxy and have only ourselves to talk to. Ok there are screens everywhere and you can easily communicate with distant friends and relations but it ain’t the same.
We are having to adjust to the changing coronavirus landscape. My sister Sue is no longer coming up to Lincoln for Christmas. Cardiff is in Tier 4. She will now be on her own for Christmas. It’s the same story all over the shop. We are all effectively in lockdown again. Ok the barber is open as is the pool but not really had the chance to use the latter due to a combination of busy with work and busy sorting out dad.
There is no point in my discussing 2020, the year that never was. At least we got our Californian holiday in February. That potentially marks the high point of our travel adventures with no real visibility of any more to come and a distinct feeling that habits are going to change in future.
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It’s later and I am back in the shed for our annual Capacity Yorkshire pub crawl. Except it ain’t happening this year so we are doing a short online few beers on the date we would have been wandering around the public houses of York. It’s been an institution in recent years. To qualify you have to be a northerner (ish) and run the internet.
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For me the brightest bit of news this year, if you can forgive the pun, is the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn which happens tonight. Not sure I ever previously gave the word conjunction any consideration especially in celestial terms and I’m not about to dwell on it now but I thought it worth a mention 🙂
The other bit of brightness in 2020 was the ousting of Donald Trump from the US Presidency. I refrained from calling him President Trump because a more unpresidential individual you could not find. The amazing thing is the fact that people voted for him in the first place. We could say the same thing about BoJo the chimpanzee here in the UK.
As I write the queues of lorries are piling up on the motorways outside Dover and Calais. Somewhat ironic really considering that this was supposed to have been the result of a no deal brexit. Feels as if Europe has slammed the door shut on the UK a few days early. Symbolic of “our” handling of the year really.
It is difficult to look ahead beyond the next few days. We have plans for 2021 that include running the Beyond The Woods Festival in August, heading to Rome in June to watch Wales play Italy at football and the new season of campervan rentals. We assume it will all happen but who knows?
In the meantime it is Christmas (hope you’ve been good). We haven’t had our usual carol session so this year we are going to do it just as a family around the fire on Christmas Eve. Most of the food shopping is in hand. I do need to buy some smoked salmon, some more vino and probably a bit of veg. Fortunately we have some lettuce and limes – important now that salad leaves and citrus fruits are being put forward as candidates for shortages in the light of the border closures.
Yesterday was the winter solstice. The days are now extending bringing with them the suggestion of hope for the future. Not sure many of us feel the optimism that should accompany this. We are hunkered down and in survival mode.
Have the best Christmas you can under the circumstances and a far better 2021 🙂