UNSETTLED CHRISTMAS EVE

The presents are wrapped, the ham is bubbling away, and we’re basically ready for Christmas. 

We’ve even worked out the bins. Since they turned the refuse collection into a kind of logic puzzle, it’s been tough to keep up with which bin goes out when at the best of times, let alone with the weirdness of the holidays. We did it though. Chin chin.

I feel a bit disorganised this Christmas. I mean that everything is sort of unknown and changing. The weather, as ever capturing it best, has turned cold and windy, rather than the thing we all hope for of course, which is calm and bright - especially if that brightness is reflected from a covering of snow. Which it won’t be.

But more than outside, even inside, there’s a kind of unsettledness to it all. Inside me, I mean. I feel disheveled and stranded, like a man alone on the sea. Strange when I’ve got family and a wife, and a great many people around who I know would not want me to feel this way. But, perhaps you feel what you feel and there‘s no getting around it.

Anyway, as Slade pointed out, here it is, Merry Christmas. I do hope everyone does have fun, even if I’m marooned on the sea of my own emotions. Mind you, they also say we should ‘look to the future now, it’s only just begun’. The future: the wind-scattered, freezing brightness of tomorrow. To be honest, that’s the scariest part of all.