Happy Christmas, and here’s to 2018.

It’s time to draw a blog-breath for a week or two. At this time of year I seem to lunge between hibernating and manic festivities. There are wonderful family days when I’m overrun with grandchildren (oh joy) and then quiet, reflective days when I can catch up with myself (oh joy).

I’ve not had the easiest year. But they happen, and I’m fine and those I love are fine, so I can look back and be proud of that. Not that I spend too long looking back - I’m more likely to spend my reflective days with my Lonely Planets wondering where next year will take me.

And where might it take you? With an orange toad in the White House and a bunch of squabbling toffs in government in the UK we have good reason to be pessimistic. But I refuse to embrace a world in which the tossers always win. I will stand up and be counted, as often as I need to. We live in a beautiful world, full of beautiful people - many of whom have a much worse time of it than you and I. It is a world we must treasure, even if those with ‘power’ seem intent on destroying it. So if my next year takes me to the barricades, so be it.

Maybe you see it differently. Whatever your view of the world, I hope we can find a way to carry on caring about each other.

So this is my Happy Christmas to you all, and may we all have a peaceful new year. I’ll be back in 2018. 

Not sure what Masefield would make of this?

‘Tis the season, and all that. And, having started playing with poems I can’t quite stop. So, given that most people are beyond thinking straight in the middle of this seasonal chaos, here’s another poetic effort, not to be taken seriously.

And sorry, Masefield.

I must go down to the shops again or I’ll run out of mince pies,

And all I ask is an empty aisle, and a trolley to steer it by,

And a sausage roll and chocolate log, I can’t be arsed for making

All this stuff at Christmas time when everyone else is sleeping.

I must go down to the shops again or I’ll run out of Christmas cards

For Auntie Nell and Uncle Jack, both need our kind regards

And Jim and Jill and Great Aunt Joan who cannot be forgotten

And all the kids because, you know, we have to spoil them rotten.

I must go down to the shops again, to the hectic Christmas mayhem

For stamps and sprouts and nuts and spuds and puds, but then ...

See, all I ask is a good book and a quiet night on the sofa

And a box of wine for me to drink when the whole thing’s over.

I wandered lonely as a shroud - sorry Wordsworth!

Now I’ve started playing with poems I find ideas all over the place.

So here is A Host of Tinkling, with apologies to Wordsworth.

I wandered lonely as a shroud

That floats through salmon, chocs and cheese

When all at once I saw a crowd 

Of tinkling tinsel Christmas trees

Beside the gin, far from the peas

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle in the coffee shops

They stretch in never-ending line

From Marks and Spencer’s down to Boots

Ten thousand saw I at a glance

Tossing their heads in festive trance.

The box of wine beside them shone

Out-did the tinsel strands in glee

A shopper could not help be glum

Beside the tinkling Christmas trees

They seemed to say, with little thought

Look at all the tat you’ve bought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood 

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude 

Oh joy, I can lie back with ease

For I escaped the Christmas trees.