Quiet times cherished during festive season

It’s a hard season to get through ...

I don’t know about you but I'm still dealing with Christmas mail, still receiving cards from people.

I’m also on email lists, Santa Claus is not absent there either. And did I mention text messages?

I just looked and I have 19 Yuletide greetings I am yet to respond to.

Don’t ask about Facebook, I am going to totally ignore those.

Christmas, I know, is a tough gig for some. That is why I prefer to stay put.

I don’t want to go somewhere else to celebrate, drive hundreds of kilometres and spend hundreds of dollars to do what I can do in our city by the sea.

Bah humbug. Call me Captain Grumpy or even the Grinch of Christmas but I like it quiet without a ton of hoopla and the attendant Christmas crackers to go with it.

On Christmas Day, I walked past a couple of our major churches, did the run down Cathedral Avenue.

I’m not terribly religious, although I have tried on occasions, but those who made the effort to spend some time in worship I’m sure were the better for it.

And now as you read this, New Year’s Day has been and gone, too.

Just for the record, I was in bed well before midnight on December 31.

The hearty congratulations and Auld Lang Syne or whatever is appropriate missed as I dreamt of peace, love and old motor vehicles.

The quiet, for me at least, of the past few days has provided a chance to look back over 2019.

I did most of the things I wanted to do and if I had any resolutions, I’m sure I carried them out to a tee.

I bet you did, too.

This coming year, I have promised myself to become more knowledgeable and to go to Perth less often.

This year, I will save up for that trip to Naples, the home of pizza. A man has to have ambition, you know.

And I will wash the car more often and iron my shirts when I need to go out.

If I had a dog, I would make sure that his bowl was always full of water.

Yes, there are plenty of things to do in 2020.

I just need the vision to achieve them.

Happy new year.