Christmas Past

Another dreadful storm is raging outside. It really feels like it has not stopped raining, nor gales howling, for most of this winter. For those of us lucky enough not have been flooded, the bonus is that the temperature remains high enough that the central heating can stay low. It sure doesn't feel like Christmas weather.

Yesterday I got my cast off, and my friend gave me a lift home from hospital and then we took the dogs for a walk. Going round the village I noticed that many of the houses which were first to have their lights and decorations up, are also the first to have taken them down. I think these folk have totally lost the concept of 12 days of Christmas. Like the supermarkets, as soon as it is midnight on Christmas Day they start looking forward to Easter.

I think that is such a shame, because this period between Christmas and New Year is my favourite bit of the season. All the hard work has been done, so you can just relax into evenings lit by firelight and fairy lights, watching Fungus the Bogeyman and The World's Strongest Man, sipping spicy drinks and hoovering up the remains of the cheeseboard.

This old photo (of a print taken on my first ever camera, a Kodak Disk camera, from which the negatives were produced on a picture wheel with 15 images on each) shows my daughter aged 7 years. Taken in that special post-festivities period, when the tree lights still sparkled, and her new dolly still had all its hair.

Christmas past? Not until the 6th of January in my house.