However you chose to spend Christmas I hope you had a peaceful time. I enjoyed an alternative solitary Christmas with my cat…no tree, decorations or turkey but Moroccan Chicken with couscous followed by pumpkin pie and later I watched a Korean zombie movie. This was the view from my kitchen window when I was washing up.
And here was my cat chilling out in her own way…
Wherever you are -stay safe and make the most of the little things in life.
Transform your family with tinsel
strategically arranged around the living.
Download seasonal hits by Wizard and Slade.
Repeat play while you cook, clean and defecate.
Anoint your sprouts with the sacred cross of Jesus.
Wrap your pigs in blankets, protect from sudden frost.
Check your bird every ten minutes. Truss her tight
with silly string. Baste with juices from your pot.
Brandy will add flavor to the tasteless.
Provide plastic antlers for your guests.
Check your fairies are operational in advance
to avoid disappointment on the big day.
Choose carefully the special someone
to cherish at the top of your tree.
Inappropriate choices will make the whole day die.
I usually steer away from politics in this blog but these are extreme times. In the despairing aftermath of a British election that voted for the most right wing, populist, racist, sexist and dishonest Prime Minister the country has ever seen I thought this poem by Charles Causley was extremely apt. I have changed a couple of lines including the last line. Thanks to Isabel for sending me the original poem enclosed with her Christmas card.
“Who’s that knocking on the window,
Who’s that standing at the door,
What are all those presents
Lying on the floor?
Who’s the smiling stranger
With hair as white as gin,
What is he doing with the children
And who could have let him in?
Why has he rubies on his fingers,
A cold, cold crown on his head,
Why, does he caw his carol,
“Get Brexit done”?
Why does he ferry my fireside
As a spider on a thread,
His fingers made of fuses
And his tongue of gingerbread?
Why does the world before him
Melt in a million suns,
Why do his yellow, yearning eyes
Burn like saffron buns?
Watch where he comes walking
Out of the Christmas flame,
Dancing, double-talking:
Boris is his name.”
God help all the poor, sick, disabled, homeless, immigrants, refugees, unemployed, elderly and other marginalised people in the UK during the coming years.
And here’s a poem by Rudyard Kipling sent to me by Alastair:-
The end of the year can be a difficult time for those of us who are alone, either through circumstance or choice. In the northern hemisphere temperatures drop, the nights grow longer and Christian communities begin their Christmas celebrations. More than any other time of year there is an emphasis on family values and sharing which can leave single people feeling alienated. There is a stigma attached to being alone at Christmas. Turkey for one? So in this post I wish to share some inspiring quotes reminding us that solitude can be a positive and healthy choice. Being alone does not necessarily mean feeling lonely and company is often overrated. The beaming, perfect families of television commercials rarely exist in reality. If you find yourself alone this Festive Period use the time wisely to recharge and regenerate your energy levels, treat yourself kindly and cherish your freedom. I’m planning to lock myself indoors with a fridge full of party food, a bottle of the local whisky liquor and a pile of wonderful books.
Ten quotes to celebrate the gift of solitude:-
1. “… the highest and most decisive experience of all, … is to be alone with his own self, or whatever else one chooses to call the objectivity of the psyche. The patient must be alone if he is to find out what it is that supports him when he can no longer support himself. Only this experience can give him an indestructible foundation.”
Carl Jung (1943)
2. “In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.”
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
3. “The only antidote to fear is to go through it. Only by embracing loneliness may its tyranny be broken.”
James Hollis (1996)
4. “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
5. “My imagination functions much better when I don’t have to speak to people.”
Patricia Highsmith
6. “Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away… and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast…. be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust…. and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
7. “There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more”
George Gordon Byron
8. “The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.”
Aldous Huxley
9. “I have to be alone very often. I’d be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That’s how I refuel.”
Audrey Hepburn: Many-Sided Charmer, LIFE Magazine, December 7, 1953
10. “Orlando naturally loved solitary places, vast views, and to feel himself for ever and ever and ever alone.”
Virginia Woolf, Orlando
If you need support try http://www.standalone.org.uk
the trifle, it exploded on blue tiles pain
-ting cryptic signs churned in chaos.
Raspberries, cream, vanilla custard, glace cherries, perfect
sponge, (home-made of course) secrets
hinted by hundreds and thousands
no-one would ever understand. The cold
glister of broken crystal, the old bowl her ex
brought back from Paris at his own risk.
She wanted to laugh until she saw
his face at the head of the table, the half
-empty bottle of Smirnoff, his plate strewn with left-over
Christmas, the scrunched up paper napkin, handy for blood
spilled when she tried to pick up the pieces.
Note:- Divorce lawyers claim January is usually their busiest time of year.
The old tramp was almost charming in the snow
leaning on the bins behind Click and Let’s Go.
Last minute shoppers admired her elegant pose,
face upturned to the stars like a Millais portrait;
the frosted lashes, the blue tint to her complexion,
the frozen teardrop on her cheek. A coating of ice
like cling film on a cut-price turkey, smoothed
the bitter lines around her eyes, glistening
in Sue’s headlights. Look, a white lady! she cried
as she snapped a cool shot for Twitter.
Note:- According to the homeless charity Crisis, more than 9,000 people will be sleeping rough over Christmas in the UK this year. The numbers are expected to rise by a further 47% in the next decade.
Santa finds no hiding place,
learns life is not a bowl of cherries…
The end of the year can be a difficult time for those of us who are alone, either through circumstance or choice. In the northern hemisphere temperatures drop, the nights grow longer and Christian communities begin their Christmas celebrations. More than any other time of year there is an emphasis on family values and sharing which can leave single people feeling alienated. There is a stigma attached to being alone at Christmas. Turkey for one? So in this post I wish to share some inspiring quotes reminding us that solitude can be a positive and healthy choice. Being alone does not necessarily mean feeling lonely and company is often overrated. The beaming, perfect families of television commercials rarely exist in reality. If you find yourself alone this Festive Period use the time wisely to recharge and regenerate your energy levels, treat yourself kindly and cherish your freedom. I’m planning to lock myself indoors with a fridge full of party food, a bottle of the local whisky liquor and a pile of wonderful books.
Ten quotes to celebrate the gift of solitude:-
1. “… the highest and most decisive experience of all, … is to be alone with his own self, or whatever else one chooses to call the objectivity of the psyche. The patient must be alone if he is to find out what it is that supports him when he can no longer support himself. Only this experience can give him an indestructible foundation.”
Carl Jung (1943)
2. “In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.”
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
3. “The only antidote to fear is to go through it. Only by embracing loneliness may its tyranny be broken.”
James Hollis (1996)
4. “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
5. “My imagination functions much better when I don’t have to speak to people.”
Patricia Highsmith
6. “Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away… and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast…. be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust…. and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
7. “There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more”
George Gordon Byron
8. “The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.”
Aldous Huxley
9. “I have to be alone very often. I’d be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That’s how I refuel.”
Audrey Hepburn: Many-Sided Charmer, LIFE Magazine, December 7, 1953
10. “Orlando naturally loved solitary places, vast views, and to feel himself for ever and ever and ever alone.”
Virginia Woolf, Orlando
The Purple Hermit 