Here's to the future

Wednesday, December 31st, 2014

Dear Past, Thank you for all the lessons. Dear Future, I'm ready...

And so another year passes into history. It's a strange time of year, New Year's Eve. On the one hand you have people wanting to go out and celebrate the passing of one year and the birth of another, singing songs, holding hands in complicated ways and knocking back the pints like there's no January 1st.
But on the other hand you have the melancholy that a New Year can bring. Few people can deny that January can be a thoroughly depressing and disheartening month. That post-celebratory period when nothing seems very enjoyable: the weather's usually appalling, there are debts to pay after the excesses of Christmas, and everybody's on a misguided drive to "better themselves", to diet or exercise or quit something in order to make them feel they are a better person, or at least making progress toward becoming one.
The truth is, we are who we are and it's difficult to change that, especially with a half-hearted diet or exercise fad. People seem determined in January to turn over a new leaf, make a change, start afresh... but so many people fall at the first or second hurdle, slipping back into their familiar routine.
And so January can be a depressing time, when ambitions are raised and dashed, and the half-lit gloom of a winter's month conspires to convince you that life is just so bloody boring and dull.
And then February comes with its Valentine's Day and promises of an early spring, and things start to improve. And then March and April bring their Easters and warmer weather, until we're back into the swing of things come May.
That all seems a bit of a ramble, reading it back, but it was a stream of consciousness, so I'm leaving it in! But what I did want to say was that New Year, for me, is a mixed bag of emotions. I'm happy to welcome in 2015 with a few drinks and a song, but underneath the surface merriment, there is a nagging feeling of melancholy. I wonder what 2015 will bring?
Certainly, for me, 2014 was a year of renewal and change. In December 2013 I had what might be described as a mini breakdown. I was signed off work, depressed and disillusioned. One day I might actually write about it.
It took me a month to get back on track and "rediscover myself", as my doctor ordered. And I did that, so by January 2014 I was re-focused on the future and trying to get out of it what I wanted.
It can take time to figure out what that is, too, and sometimes you have to identify what you don't want first before coming upon what you do want.
And so by the end of 2014 I've got married (after 18 years together already!) and quit my job, a job I'd been in for far too long, which was not healthy for me, and which I no longer fully believed in. It was time to make a change for the better while it was still possible. It was a brave move, but very definitely the right choice.
And with brave choices comes the fear of the unknown. But whatever 2015 holds, for me as well as mine, it must be faced with strength and fortitude, with enthusiasm and, where appropriate, joy.
Because life is not a rehearsal. You get only one of them, and this is it. It's so important to make your life what you want it to be, or as close as possible.
You won't get another chance. Not in this lifetime...

PS: It's interesting looking back on my blog post from December 27th last year and reading how I was feeling with the onset of 2014. I was looking forward to it and was convinced it was going to be a good one. Which it was. So this encourages me to look to 2015 with even more enthusiasm and a positive outlook. Let's see what the morrow may bring...

Black Friday: a dark day indeed

Sunday, November 30th, 2014

The utter chaos that Britain's first Black Friday was met with beggars belief. People were tearing at each other to get to bargains they believed they had to have, even going so far as to physically assault fellow shoppers and abuse retail staff.
I mean, is anything worth that: losing your dignity just to get your grubby hands on a new telly?
Black Friday is, of course, an American thing, and what happens in America almost inevitably makes its way to the UK eventually, for good or ill. In several states in the US, people are actually given a public holiday on Black Friday so they can get in the midnight queues early. As a result, the first Friday after Thanksgiving has been the busiest shopping day of the year every year since 2005 in the States.
This year was the first time it's really been picked up on and actually pushed en masse in the UK. Everywhere I went in Manchester on Friday, there were signs and adverts telling me the day was black and that I could get so much per cent off this, and it could well be my last chance to get that essential gift at such a knockdown rate.
And the streets were packed. I mean, severely congested to the point that you were barely able to move freely without either treading on a small lost child, or bashing shoulders with a frenzied housewife with consumer hara-kiri on her mind.
And it saddens me that this anti-social and frighteningly damaging annual ritual is being promoted in the UK. Christmas is stressful and expensive enough as it is without retailers smugly trying to wring even more pennies out of those who cannot afford it by trying to convince consumers that they really have to buy it today - not tomorrow, not closer to Christmas: TODAY! It's your last chance, or else you'll be paying twice the price, and probably for less.
I fear for the pockets and bank balances of those in Britain who really cannot afford to fall victim to this consumerist pressure. Retailers should take responsibility and refrain from putting undue and unnecessary pressure on people to spend, spend, spend what they haven't got. People will pile up their debts on credit cards and then find themselves in even more trouble in January than they might have if they'd just stuck to sensible, paced Christmas shopping throughout December (or earlier!).

And the violence that broke out on November 28th in the UK, where people attacked one another in supermarkets in desperate attempts to get the last cheap iPod or whatever, is unacceptable, yet depressingly predictable.
Metropolitan Police chief Sir Peter Fahy rightly said: "The events... were totally predictable and I am disappointed that stores did not have sufficient security on duty."
Greater Manchester Police's Deputy Chief Constable Ian Hopkins echoed these sentiments, saying that while shoppers' behaviour was appalling, the lack of planning from retailers was "really disappointing. They should have planned appropriately with appropriate levels of security to make sure people were safe. They have primary responsibility to keep people safe and they can’t rely on the police to turn up and bail them out."
The Black Friday phenomenon is only going to get worse year on year because we live in a consumerist society where electronic goods and multimedia and pointless tat like loom bands and woolly Christmas jumpers are valued more highly than simply making sure there's enough (not too much) food on the table and having a happy, family-orientated day in the spirit of Christmas.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not religious, and I certainly don't begrudge people a bit of fun and frivolity, but the destructive power that Black Friday has demonstrated this year has to be kept in check, for all our sakes.

It's all very well giving Tesco and Asda and all those other multinational retail giants bigger profits sooner, but what is it doing to our society, to our debt-ridden and those on restricted budgets who feel pressured into buying when they really needn't?

I hope that if Black Friday rears its ugly head again in 2015 - which it will - retailers take responsibility, and mediate and control its marketing, make sure there is security on their doors at one minute past midnight, and above all, don't encourage mass debt.

But then this is the UK. I shouldn't expect so much.

Tinsel in the sunshine

Friday, December 27th, 2013

Cake before incision

And there it was, Christmas. Did you enjoy it? Did it meet all of your wild expectations? Did it do everything it said on the tin? Well, mine was enjoyably quiet, spent with Gareth's parents, who - surprisingly - didn't try to feed me one single cream cake. Pork pies, though, were a very different matter. I don't think I ever want to see another pork pie until, well... at least January 1st.
I am no particular fan of Christmas; I really do think that, unless you're a churchgoer and celebrate Christmas for its proper religious traditions, it's very much a time for children, or to be a child. If you're a parent or grandparent and can spend Christmas Day with a child, it must be magical. But otherwise, for your average adult, it's just a time to be with friends and family, drink and eat and be off work. And that'll do me.
The lead-in to Christmas is far better than the day itself, and certainly better than the aftermath. I prefer the expectation of Christmas Eve, when the presents are wrapped and under the tree and the excitement of the next day is yet to come.
And the worst day is Boxing Day, when the house is upside down and the last thing you feel like doing is tidying the house or washing or cleaning or hoovering or anything remotely approaching strenuous.

Tinsel in the sunshine. Yuk!

And what I hate most of all is tinsel in the sunshine. Christmas should be strictly a night-time thing, with colourful lights and candles and shiny decorations twinkling in the twilight. Tinsel in the winter sun just depresses me, for some reason.
It wasn't actually until today that we got round to breaking open the Christmas cake my mum had baked us. My mum's Christmas cakes are always delicious - and alcoholic - affairs, and this one was no exception. I can't eat too much rich food, so this time of year is particularly difficult with all of its mince pies and puddings, but my mum's cake is always light, and this year is laced with all manner of spirits, as well as boasting a rather lovely double layer of icing, with marzipan sandwiched between.
Next up, New Year. I much prefer New Year, it is a time to celebrate the good things of the previous twelve months and look forward and make plans for the next twelve. The year 2013 won't go down in my own personal timeline as a classic, but I can feel in my bones that 2014 is going to be a year of real change, for the better. January will bring a turning point in my life (the exact nature of which I look forward to discovering), and February has a massive and important event too, which I am looking forward to immensely.
And beyond that? Who knows... But I do know that it's going to be a good one.

Cake post-incision. Loving the double layer of icing

Photo-set: Happy (miniature) Christmas!

Thursday, December 19th, 2013

I visited my parents last week and they had this amazing festive diorama laid out on the front room sideboard which took my dad ages to set up. He sculpted the snowy base from polystyrene and painted it, then populated this winter wonderland with ornaments and models and buildings he'd bought from a shop.
It's one of those lovely alpine set-ups, complete with illuminated shops and even a "roaring" fire around which children sing carols and warm their hands while roasting chestnuts. It all looked amazing in the dark, the sort of place you wish you could be transported to for a proper, snowy, traditional Christmas (rather than the gale-force hell we tend to get in the UK).
I took a few pictures of the diorama and wished I could transform into a Borrower and explore it on foot. But while I might feel small much of the time, I'll never be small enough to properly take a look around my parents' winter wonderland.
Merry Christmas!

Here's the alpine wonderland in the cold light of day

My dad's Nativity, also designed himself. He's retired, he can do things like this...

My mum's startlingly blue Christmas tree. Yes, it's a bit lop-sided, but I didn't like to say.

Yes, really, it is a Christmas stationery shop

Father Christmas feeding Rudolph with something probably far too rich for his diet

Slightly moodier pic from the side. They need more street lighting over there,
someone could get mugged.