I suspect my blog was actually getting on a bit, that I’d started it some time ago so I went and took a look and was quite shocked to discover the first entry was actually from June 2004!
Somehow I have managed to keep it all in one piece despite numerous moves about from one remote location to another.
I’ve probably lost some images along the way which went with entries but, back then, the internet was really slow so, quite likely those pictures were poor quality and barely worth bothering with.
2004 was a really very busy and decisive year. It was when I decided to end the relationship I was in at the time and rediscover myself, so much has happened since. I am tempted to read it all through just in case I missed something fun!
I feel that each year Christmas has come that little bit earlier.
It might be nice to play this whilst your reading
There was a time when Christmas didn’t even think about getting going until two weeks before the day. Occasionally, for those of us old enough to remember, Blue Peter would encourage us to build our very own (burn the house down) advent crown with old coat hangers, tinsel and some tacked on candles! Anyway, they’d get us to make this and maybe some other little decorations would appear.
The very first of the decorations in my mind were always those we picked up from Hainault Forest in Essex. It was always bitterly cold but we’d go and explore to see if we could find some decorative items, ideally mistletoe and holly (with berries) so mum could make her yearly arrangement with the never were alive fake Robin’s on. There was something magical about that. Magical and not a little cold, muddy and damn right miserable being told not to bring the mud into the car so boots had to be removed and put in the, erm, boot I assume. It was wet, uncomfortable and, back in the day, every part of the car was really, really cold and, no seat belts of course.
Indeed, my first memory is as a baby of me looking up at the ceiling decorations from my pram. Of course, it puzzled me for years that memory as there were no words. It was only when I described what I could see to mum she worked out I couldn’t have been more than 6 months old, which fits considering I was born in June! I remember the feeling, even now 57 year later I can tune into that feeling I had back then. Like I say, I cannot put it into words because this was a time when I didn’t think in words, only feelings. I wish you could feel that just now.
Christmas to a child is just magic in an emotion
It doesn’t take much to get a child excited about Christmas, it’s a natural thing to see colour, sparkles and smiling faces and it’s just pure joy.
But, we are all children, the sooner we accept that the better our lives become.
We do have this idea of Christmas of course, no real basis to it seeing as it was effectively a glorious time, thousands of miles away and somewhat hot and yet, our idea of a typical Christmas looks more like this:
Typical British ideal of Christmas.
Of course, it’s rarely ever like that, for the most part it is overcast, likely drizzling rain and neither cold or warm, just a nothing so of day but, we have our dreams of the weather we expect so, let’s put it into pictures …
As you can see, lovely and ideal but, rarely anywhere near Christmas! Far more likely to be February or March for snow and some years we don’t get it at all.
Sharing Christmas
Christmas is, of course, never the same on our own and sharing it with the person or people we love makes it that special time. But even strangers if we give them a friendly smile, ask them how they’re doing and make them feel wanted can share in the season.
What we will miss
Part of it also is heading to the stores and seeing the displays, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
This is me
I am about to take my second Covid test, hopefully it’s negative but I am feeling rather poorly if I am honest but, there are tons of things it could be so I am not worried but … it does make me think. Life is so precious, so short and if we get a feeling we want to do something and we can do it, shouldn’t we?
Those who, of course, we won’t share another Christmas with give us all the more reason to make this time the very best it can be.
So, here is to Christmas to defrosting Michael Bublé, buying the gifts and slicing through family politics and, perhaps, a time to pray for how lucky we are for having such amazing memories.
I personally think we are all the better as a nation for our Monarchy. They do represent us as a country worldwide and that they’re unelected makes it all the better, they never have to follow party lines, stick to a popular trend or offer bribes to get elected, they just uphold our dignity.
When someone attacks our monarchy they attack us, when they ignore etiquette they are insulting us.
Something we often forget is that the Queen (or King) represents the Commonwealth and not just ‘England’. She is head of state to all of these countries:
Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, Canada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Lucia, Solomon Islands, St Kitts and Nevis, and St Vincent and the Grenadines. Jamaica is considering removing her but it’s by no means certain, Barbados will let her go in November of 2021 (their loss).
Is the Monarch perfect?
No, far from it and this is why they represent us so well. There was a time when suggesting the Monarchy was fallible would have been treason and punished accordingly, thankfully we’ve moved on since then!
In recent years and by that, I mean the last century, we have seen some huge changes. Some for the better, others not so much.
Edward the VIII abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry a divorced woman, an American no less. The Church of England and Parliament made it abundantly clear that such a union was incompatible with the role of Monarch. The new King made his choice to go with love over duty.
In contrast, Prince Charles admitted publicly to an affair with a married woman whilst married himself. Despite both being divorced he married her in 2005 and it remains a controversy to his day with many hoping he too will abdicate and never take the throne. Whist constitutional experts still debate trying to find a way forward it remains a constant that the country is uncomfortable with the union and against her becoming Queen.
Many also believe that his ‘son’, Prince Harry, isn’t actually his at all but rather the son of James Lifford Hewitt who had an affair with Diana, Princess of Wales. Such is the nature of the monarchy this will never be disclosed. Prince Harry himself sparked controversy when he married an American divorcee. She did not conform to establishment expectations and as such, we lost the Prince to populism. The couple left the country to lean more to her persuasion of celebrity.
The Queen once referred to a period in her life as her ‘Horrible Year’ though in line with the educated minority, she said it in Latin ‘Annus horribilis’. Many of our citizens do not understand why an educated elite feel the need to revert to Latin when there are perfectly good English alternatives.
Whilst we will not always agree with the Monarchy they do raise more revenue for the UK than they consume in public funds, they are our long term investment in ourselves and, in what other job is a person still working full time into their 90’s?
I’ve been using Blogger for some time now but, the trouble with Blogger is that, I actually do not own it. Google could at any time delete it, change it or sell it or, plaster it with adverts and there isn’t anything I can do about that.
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