Happy New Year

Happy New Year wherever you are.

We were down at the Static for New Year, a friend stayed over and we had a quiet but enjoyable evening, food, film, wine, sparkling wine and oddly timed fireworks. They seemed to go mad between nine and nine thirty and then nothing.
Today we returned and took the Christmas decs down, swept the floor of fir needles, put washing on.

Our Christmas period entertainment has been mostly Downton Abbey. England's obsession is our obsession. With just the two-hour Christmas special to go, we face the long, dark teatime of the soul until the next series appears.

Sometimes, the Christmas period seems interminable. Sometimes it's over in a blink of an eye.

I don't have any resolutions. I have things I want to do, to explore, to face head on, but nothing as specific as a resolution.

Today would be my friend Anne's birthday. I have been typing up some of the 'missing' chapters from her novel. I have the hard copy, but no electronic file. For one reason or another, I had to photocopy some of the pages. As I typed them up, I put them in the recycling. One morning over the past week, I awoke to a familiar, yet unplaceable scent. It came into my head that it was Anne's soap, yet I still couldn't say, 'oh yes, of course.' I went down to make the coffee. I was standing on the opposite side of the kitchen and suddenly, the pages of Anne's novel lifted up from the bin and fell down the stairs, as though they had been moved by a breath of wind. Of course, there were no windows open and there is no heating vent anywhere near the recycling bin. Coincidence I guess, at a time when my friend is very much in my thoughts.

I still find it unbelievable that she is no longer here. In the grand scheme of things, I hadn't known her that long, but we were good friends. When I think of friends that I don't see, or don't see very often, but whom I've known for almost my whole life,  it seems impossible that the world could continue without them being in it. At some point in my life, I guess I'll experience that - or they will.  And I can't imagine it, nor do I want to.

New Year.
Makes you think.