I spent the run-up to Christmas trying to keep up. Our local area went from relatively virus-free to one of the top twenty infection hot-spots in England. I wasn’t keen to go out and mix with other people – most have been polite and willing to keep their distance, but some are oblivious and focussed only on getting what they came into the shop to get, never mind if anyone else is standing at the counter they want.
So when it became clear that I was going to run out of Christmas cards before I ran out of recipients, I made my own. A project I intended to get on with a few years ago and never quite had the courage to finish. This year, needs must. I sent the home-made cards to friends I thought wouldn’t be offended by the primary school designs and the odd blotch, and then I sent the last cards to anyone left on the list, because I really did have no shop-bought cards left.
Now I’m sitting back with time to think, I’d say it was a good thing to do. I put in a hand written note to any friends I hadn’t had much contact with recently, letting them know what’s happened to us this year – quite a lot, despite lockdown, and two pages just about covered it. I’m tempted to make up a few more Christmas cards ready for next year.
Today was a quiet day, recovering from a late night. We emailed our neighbours to check they weren’t trying to sleep through midnight, and no, they weren’t. Last January, they invited us to their Burns Night Supper, and I wanted to invite them to a St Georges Day dinner in exchange (lockdown probably saved them from food poisoning). Instead, we ended up standing on one side of our hedge singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ to them in their garden fifty metres away. They were singing back to us, and we yelled Happy New Year to each other over the distance. We came back inside buzzing and happy, feeling that we’d had a new year celebration as good and as safe as any we’ve had in previous years.
Happy New Year!
Julia Chalkley 