This last week/ten days has been another roller-coaster - busy in preparations, hectic over Christmas, followed by dull, empty days.
The run-up to Christmas is always full of last minute things to be done - and this year, despite having had nothing else to do for months, seemed worse than ever; knitted presents to finish, potatoes to peel, house to clean (oops, yes, that is something that's been neglected while no one's been visiting).
Christmas itself wasn't how I would have liked it to be, but at the moment it's necessary to make the best of what we're 'allowed', and I think we did. All three sections of our family were in tier three, so it's theoretically possible to continue to meet outdoors, though not in gardens - unfortunately winter isn't the best time for that, so being able to get together inside for one day was brilliant.
Unfortunately such fun left a big hole to be filled in the days after. The Twixtmas period is always odd, consisting mainly of eating all the chocolates and leftover cake, not ready to pick up everyday life, but it seemed duller, drearier, and much more boring than usual this year. Having moped around the house for a couple of days, the boredom was broken by snow. There wasn't much but I went out and made a tiny snowman!
The next day my elder daughter and grandson came over for a muddy walk to the wood. In part this was because nursery re-opens on Monday, but it was well timed as while we were out the news broke that we're all moving up a tier, so there'll not even be any outdoor meet-ups for a while.
Being at a lose end I'm taking part in the Wildlife Trusts' Twelve Days of Wild. Mainly this involves paying attention to the birds in the garden; breaking the ice on their bath, filling the feeders, listening to the magpies squabble and the pigeons cooing at each other, spotting goldfinches high in the trees, watching the visitors to birdbath and table - robins, blackbirds, great tits (I think), and of course the pigeons.
One bright morning I cleared away some garden weeds to find snowdrops pushing through, and on our walk to the wood I found hazel catkins, so maybe spring will be here soon.
Although I'm not throwing myself into plans for New Year quite yet, I'm lining up ideas of things to keep me occupied through the rest of winter, one of which is an attempt at Veganuary, eating no meat or dairy for the whole month - mainly to give me something to focus on, but also to make all the allotment vegetables the main feature of the menu, hopefully for longer than just one month. It's time as well to give serious consideration to other New Year resolutions, something more definable that my usual vague wishful thinking, but more of those in January!
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