Yuletide greetings...

The solstice occurs at 11.38pm today - so tonight's is the shortest night of the year. The days will be starting to get longer and we begin the long slow climb back towards spring tonight - time to start thinking about positive things and moving forward...
It would be a lot easier to move forward if I didn't still have barbed wire in my underwear... there are still stitches, and the scar is still very very itchy indeed. They were quite adamant that the stitches would dissolve on their own, but they have been in there over five weeks now and I can't believe they are supposed to still be in there, still very firm and showing no signs whatsoever of dissolving at all. I think I feel a call to the lovely Breast Care nurses tomorrow.

Yuletide is one thing, but I am starting to get a bit worn out with the Christmas thing. I'm not a Christian, so I won't be off to church at 11:30pm on Friday, (although I will be outside at 11.38 tonight!) but I do think that the message seems to have got a bit lost somewhere along the way. The supermarket was like Bedlam this morning, I cannot quite see what people are going to do with all the food that they are stacking up - and we have a few days before the fisticuffs over the last pack of pre-fabricated sausages-wrapped-in-bacon thingies commence. I actually felt that I was letting the side down by emerging with ten pounds of potatoes, a cauliflower and a packet of toothbrushes... I found myself gazing lustfully at sequin-encrusted sleeveless tops - why?
a) I have enough party gear
b) I am not actually going to any parties where sequins would be appropriate
c) ok, I am not going to any more parties!
d) I won't be wearing sleeveless for a little while, at least until the barbed wire under my arm is less visible.
But the hype is there, and if we don't have a shiny new frock we feel somehow cheated...

We also feel that we're social pariahs if we don't get a thousand greetings cards too... I sat down this afternoon to get on with the task of writing them, determined to send them only to folks we really care about - not the "they didn't send me one last year so they don't get one this year" thing, but actually thinking about whether we wanted to send a special message of love and friendship to people we don't see very often. And gratifyingly, the list of people we felt that way about was quite a bit longer than I expected. Not much help in economising on stamps, but nice to think we have so many real friends.

Pressie production is still rather painful... a batch of fudge set in the pan before I could get it into the tray this afternoon, which was frustrating... the fabric shop was shut when I went round this morning, so the embroidered goodies are stalled... we don't even have a tree to put things under anyway... sigh...

On the brighter side, I actually got my birthday pressie this week... my birthday was in April, and DH bought tickets for us to go and see Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds Alive on Stage at Brighton - and the day finally arrived on Thursday of this week. It was a bit bloody brilliant... and seriously, having those tickets pinned to the noticeboard in front of my desk has helped me through some pretty tough times this summer! Now to plot how I can get tickets for next year's tour... and finance buying all the Moody Blues albums that I used to have on vinyl a million years ago...

So, I wish you, dear reader, all the best on this solstice night - may the coming spring be a bright sunny one, and not so long in coming. Although I will make an exception for some snow next weekend...