December 3rd

Once more December has sneaked up behind me - overtaken me and is off and running - and from now on in I will be playing my inevitable "catch up" with all I have to do.  All the same I love this month in the year - after all it is the anniversary of the biggest upheaval of all - that 2000+ years ago the Son of God arrived on our earth to live his short life as a human baby, boy & man and in the process leave the rest of mankind with the gift that is Christmas. Well it has always felt like a gift to me - it is magic, mystery, gifts, wrapping,cards, candles, special secrets, fire light, good food, love & laughter. Why should we be exempt from a bit of upheaval too?
As you know, actually I enjoy the upheaval -  I have always loved Christmas, with its trees, evergreens, bright berries, and all the other fripperies which go alongside. I adore wrapping my parcels, decorating my tree and the rest of my home, preparing the Christmas foods, having guests - and being one! sending & receiving cards, being with my family, and just the general hustle & bustle of making & planning my Christmas. I do hope all your Christmas preparations are coming together smoothly.
I have been thinking about Christmas past as I go about my preparations fo rthis year and I know I am blessed, as in my mind's eye, when I look back down my years I see only happy memories. So many of them - far too may to mention each one individually -  but wide ranging  - from Christmas in hospital with a new baby to preparing our "Works Christmas Buffet" for many years, Christmas on an island to Christmas in the English Lakes, Christmas in school to my many golden childhood Christmasses at home and at Granny's, for me the magic never fades. I hope you too are looking forward to another very happy Christmas season.
Anyway - to play catch up for another year - there have been few major changes to our life again this year - Rhiannon is in her second year at University and still enjoying it and hopefully working hard towards her degree. I am sure she is - she knows that it is an opportunity she can't afford to waste. She will be home for Christmas in the next couple of weeks - so I am so looking forward to seeing her again. She towers above me now - looks "down" on her little mum these days! Lydia is still living and working in Sheffield - after a few difficult months I think life is beginning to be kind to her again - at least I do hope & pray it is. She is still horse mad - and dreams of a job working with them, so perhaps next year will be the one in which that particular dream comes true. Ben is still at home, though has got a few travel plans in the pipeline.
Both my girls will be coming to stay for the holiday season - as will mum & dad - well they come for a week - at least they do as long as there are flights on & off the island, so I will have a cottage full of guests. We have been hit by snow - very unusual I assure you - and as I write this letter it is still bitterly cold and the ground frozen, hopefully it will have warmed up by the time mum & dad are flying in.

Quote for the Day

Christmas is the gentlest, loveliest festival of the revolving year - and yet, for all that, when it speaks, its voice has strong authority.  ~W.J. Cameron

On this day 
1967 - Dr Christiaan Barnard carried out the first heart transplant on a human - Louis Washinsky - Cape Town, South Africa
1989 - George H W Bush & Mikhail Gorbachev release statements the the Cold war between USA & Soviet Russia may be coming to an end
1992 - Two bombs planted by the IRA explode in the centre of Manchester injuring 65 people. forcing police to evacuate the whole of the city centre causing widespread disruption.( I was in Manchester that morning but had returned home before the bomb detonated)
Feast Day: St. Lucius, king and confessor, end of second century. St. Birinus, bishop and confessor, 650. St. Sola, hermit, 790. St. Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, confessor, 1552.
UK