Wakey- wakey!

Instead of watching the latest episodes of ’Spiral’ on television last evening I made the mistake of recording them and instead spent the time wrestling with a knotty problem that I had hit with the plot of my latest book, the sequel to ‘Someday, Maybe’, (available online and on Kindle along with the second book, ‘Moving On’!) and scribbling down some possible solutions for getting over it.

I should know better!

It wouldn’t have been so bad if my brain had kept me awake most of the night in order to continue with working on the subject, but it didn’t. What my brain and I amused ourselves with to pass the night time hours was a dreary and protracted recital of nursery rhymes, ‘’Hey Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle’, ‘Little Boy Blue’, ‘Dr Forster went to Gloucester’, ‘Little Polly Flinders’ and so on and so on, which seemed to be on a loop, arriving on the hour every hour. Between performances, we employed ourselves usefully in making such fascinating studies as counting up how many of each letter there might be in my full name and what the sum total of those numbers might be; how many generations have lived in this house ( musing at length as to whether a generation should be two-score-years and ten or somewhere around 40 to allow for having children), what route my husband’s troop train would have taken between the Hook of Holland and Berlin when he was doing his National Service, how many stops and where there might have been (wondering at length whether or not the men got undressed at night to get into their bunks. I decided not; no room.) We continued in like vein until the light crept in weakly around the edges of the curtains, whereupon I drifted off…

… and awoke moments later knowing that I had discovered the Meaning Of Life! Eureka! What a moment!

Fortunately, I keep a notebook by my bed and I scribbled it down for posterity before drifting off again.  I entrust it to you, dear reader:-

‘Joy of joys,

Tea of teas.

Don’t it make you

Want to sneeze?’

Yes,I did find it just a little disappointing in the morning.

New Year’s Eve we lit a bonfire on the headland at the place where the winds from the sea meet theOn  winds from the stars. We danced with flying hair and pounding hearts amidst the glittering sparks, drank deeply to our dear lost friends and shouted our hopes and wishes for the New Year into the orchestra of the crashing waves. 

Oh, no, we didn’t, I’m wrong there. Sorry.

We were in bed by ten.

I do remember a time when New Year's Eve was the highlight of our social calendar. Christmas for the children, NYE for the adults. In the earlier years, we usually spent it in the home of some Scottish friends, who really pushed the boat out, first-footer and all. Then later, we would host a dinner party for a group of good friends. It usually went on all night. The last time we celebrated NYE with any sort of style and degree of  enthusiasm must have been  seven or eight years ago now. 

Does it make us feel uncomfortable that the years are flying past too fast? Do we have insufficient energy and optimism? Are there too few dear friends left with whom to celebrate? Does the midnight tolling of Big Ben remind us too much of good times that are passed? Are we too fearful of tomorrow?  Who knows!

We feel quite happy really. We just prefer an early night.