As Ideas Go...

Sparking up straight after leaving work on the Friday before the festivities, I decided it was as good a time as any to quit this nasty habit. It also seemed to be a good idea to knock the gaspers on the head as well.

Which meant that I left myself open to whatever sneaky little end-of-year viruses were going around. So this is what taking the healthy option gets you: hot and cold running flushes, the kind of sneezes that give you whiplash, plus all the associated achy aches and pains.

Still, it livened things up. I know I’d been pretty distracted of late. But looking back, I wondered if, during the past couple of weeks, I took a wallop to the noggin as well that rattled my brain around something rotten.

Something must have happened. Because it’s the only reason that I would have not only written something as daft as I finally want to spend time with family but actually headed down to the Westcountry for Christmas. I mean, what the fuck was I thinking?

It may be that after going our separate ways over a quarter of a century ago, we never quite managed to reconnect. At least, I didn’t. My sister seems to have integrated herself back into the familial unit.

As the turkey was being carved and bowls of vegetables were passed around, it didn’t seem the best time to ask if it was them or me who is to blame for the situation being the way it is. I think I try to make an effort, but it still leaves me feeling like a stranger amongst them, which is a shame.

I suppose it became pretty obvious that this year wasn’t going to be better than before when, holding the ladder for the old man so he could trim one of the trees in the garden, without warning a fucking great branch he had sawn through clocked me hard on the elbow on the way down.

Still, while I was down there it meant I could visit my aunt. Since I’d last been down, enough time had passed for the plot to settle so the marble headstone and surround my uncle had selected to finally be erected over her grave. It’s a shame that the one person who I want to answer back to me never does.

Anyway, having gone back for this Christmas, next year I get a pass. And I will be over the hills and far away.