Thursday 21 December Merry Christmas!Most of the Christmas shopping is done (apart from the turkey – I'll buy that on Saturday, so that it doesn't have to be frozen). We both got up early this morning, and arrived at Sainsbury's before 8am in order to avoid the crowds later in the day. This was a very successful idea: the aisles were uncrowded and there were no lines at the checkouts. We had bought all our provisions for the holiday period by 9am, and Mary suggested that we should go to Sainsbury's cafe for breakfast. I sat with her while she demolished a plate of sausage, egg and bacon but I couldn't face eating any of their food myself. I had a cup of coffee, but even that seemed pointless, since I can make much better coffee at home. I was glad to get home to a simple breakfast of clementines, toast and home-made marmalade, plus another coffee of course. Most of the other Christmas preparations are also complete. The cards are strung up along the wall, the tree is lit up and decorated with all the usual baubles, and we are waiting for Liz to come home tomorrow, which is Mary's birthday. I hope Liz makes it home safely. She has a long drive up from Bristol, and most of the route is covered with thick fog. Not here, though: it has been clear, crisp and sunny for the past few days. But further south the fog has been very bad, and there has been chaos at the London airports as most flights have been delayed or cancelled, with thousands of people's holiday plans disrupted. We are celebrating Mary's birthday tomorrow by going for dinner in York, followed by a Christmas concert, part of the York Early Music Christmas Festival. On Saturday we are giving a dinner party for some friends, on Sunday we are invited out to visit some neighbours, and on Christmas Day, Monday, we'll have some other friends round for dinner. So today is the last opportunity that I'll have to wish any remaining readers of this journal health and happiness at this Yuletide season.
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Sunday 31 December
You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismayed; be cheerful, sir.
Our revels are now ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
Christmas is over, Liz has gone back to Bristol and we quietly resume the uneventful life of a sedate retired couple.
After three months of retirement, I'm finding that it suits me very well. I enjoy the slow, unstressful pace of life, and I'm finding plenty to do to keep me occupied. The main task of renovating the bathroom is coming on slowly but surely. We have now got to the stage of looking through catalogues of bathroom fittings and wall tiles, and have more or less chosen what we want. We'll use professional plumbers to put the new bath and washbasin in place, and then I'll enjoy doing the tiling and painting myself. That will probably occupy most of the time until we go away for our two weeks' vacation in Gran Canaria in February.
One thing about retirement that has really taken me by surprise is that I no longer feel motivated to maintain this online journal. When I started it, in 1998, it was a huge help to me in sorting out my feelings about how my life was going. Through it, I made several really good online friendships for which I am continually grateful. But things have changed, and the entries that I used to make two or three times a week have dwindled to one or two a month. I don't want it to get to the stage where it's a burden to keep it going, so I have decided that this entry will be the last on this site.
Someone once told me that every cell in the human body is renewed over a seven-year span. I don't believe that there is any scientific validity in this, but it does seem to have an element of truthiness in it. I have always felt that during any given seven-year period I become essentially a different person. I'm certainly very different now from how I was in 1998, and I suppose that is reflected in the fact that I no longer want to keep writing here. At least I can say that this journal has lasted a good deal longer than the average online journal or blog.
I will maintain this lobo-solo web site, for archival purposes, but I don't have plans to add to it. I don't intend to stop writing altogether, though. I still have my LiveJournal account, and doubtless I'll put up entries there from time to time. For a while now, I have been mirroring most of my entries in this journal to the LJ page. If any readers here want to join up with LJ and add me to their "friends list", I'll be glad to reciprocate. There's also the family web site, which gets updated from time to time with photographic records of our various trips and activities.
So finally, thanks to all the friends who have stayed with me here over the years, and all best wishes for 2007 and beyond.
