No time over Christmas to blog but I thought I’d try to record my thoughts after trying to put the ideas into practice. Most importantly, our Christmas was great. We had the family round us till yesterday afternoon. Everyone enjoyed themselves, particularly the grandchildren who played together peacefully - for the most part. We managed to spend lots of time with the family including with our children once the little ones were asleep. I think we were fairly restrained, not getting caught up in the commercial excesses, although this year these seemed fewer with sales starting in December. I think I managed to keep in touch with the Christmas story throughout, in spite of the absence in much of the commercial hype.
Looking briefly back at some of the suggested actions, a number strike a chord: I have made a lunch date with one friend, made contact with a local charity for the homeless and found some personal time (the Dylan Thomas and Wilfred Owen books are still out although I haven’t spent much time reading them.) I failed to contact many of our new neighbours - some were at the Carol Service at Little Hampden. By the way, we had a visit from a couple at Little Hampden Church yesterday - he had worshipped in the Church some time ago when he was a pupil at the school so we made new neighbours in Richmond.
We’ve been reasonably green over Christmas and one of my presents was a thing to make logs for the fire from paper: I’d thought about this earlier, particularly as recycled paper is piling up and we seem to generate so much of it. I’ve made my first log and saved some of the gift wrapping to be processed when I have time - and the temperature rises a little: the paper has to be soaked in water for a few days. My bucket is frozen at the moment. This isn’t an instant solution however because the logs have to dry out. The instructions say that the logs will dry in a week in a greenhouse (presumably in summer) It also suggests that the best time to make them is the summer. So gift-wrap logs for next Christmas!
Blogging has been fun and, in spite of few comments on the web, several people have been very positive. I guess the shortage of comments is due in part to the pressure that everyone is under in the run up to Christmas. I hope so. So I think I’ll continue, not every day and not, of course, the Cottrell Advent: I’ll broaden to my activities as Churchwarden and my charitable work. On the former there’s a lot going on: a new organ for Little Hampden, a new year and dare I mention the Eagle? On the latter I’ll try not to be too nerdy. One really pleasing e-mail sent to me on Christmas Day was from one of my IT Friends jubilantly reporting that she had successfully skyped her family in New Zealand. Great!
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