Noel 2014. New Year 2015.

Noel. Brittany. 2014.

My 21st Christmas in a foreign land. Everyone spent here in all of those 21 years. And always alone. This doesn’t bother me, and never has. I have learned the value of my own company.

I do the time honoured things that I have always done. I buy far too much food, looking for bargains in the weeks before. But that in itself is fun.
I make a Christmas Cake, which is just about the only cake I have ever had any success with. I make Mincemeat for Pies. I knock up my own Stuffing, which never tastes the same on any two occasions. And then I get down to it on Christmas Eve.

I mock up a Christmas Tree from local vegetation. Fir Branches normally, but the Fir Wood across the road has now been felled. So this year I have taken a lesson from Twig Trees, and cut some Quince Twigs which looks fine, littered with my now ancient decorations.

My lovely Camillia is in full bloom. Bright pink double blooms that brighten the garden. This Camillia is actually older than me, and serves so well as cut blooms.

The vegetables are all in the freezer, blanched and ready to go. All bought a teensy bit past their Sell By Date, but for a fraction of the price. I will as usual, be able to feed an army.
No army will arrive, but that doesn’t matter. They are all here in spirit, albeit doing their own thing.

I gave them all the only real thing that I could. A belief that their mother is always alright.

She isn’t always,, but that is another story. And not a story that I am ever going to tell . Sometimes it is what you don’t say that matters the most.

I am so very proud of them all. And they aren’t half bad looking either. Not that this has anything to do with anything.

Christmas Day. In the Year of Our Lord 2014.

My dinner is cooking and the fire is roaring up my ancient chimney. That chimney was old when I was young.

When I was eighteen, it never entered my mind that I would see The 21st Century, but I have now, and for fourteen years. All good years in their own way.
Children grown and gone, and now looking to their own old age, hopeful with more provisions put in place than I paid attention to.
But I don’t mind being a bit poor. It stretches my mind to innovation and survival. How can I do this or that with limited resources?
My life has always been about survival. It’s an inborn state of mind for me. I am a Celt after all and everything.
January 2015

And another year to look forward to. I go to sleep every night looking forward to another day, and now another year. One tends not to notice such optimism. It was quite a surprise to me when I suddenly realised that this is what I have done for all of my life.
I am a born optimist, and thank heaven for that.

I have long been intending to start a blog about lonely and abandoned old women, and to give you all the benefit of my expertise on how to deal with it.

I have been a lonely and abandoned old woman for fifteen years now, so I do have some form on this one. And lots of really fascinating ways of how to cope.

Rule One. Never give your ungrateful little barstewards a hard time. It doesn’t work, and they only hate you more than they did already.

Rule Two Don’t bother Emailing them, they never answer, and it is only another way in which to get no mail.

Rule Three. Get out of bed in the morning, preferably before midday. Otherwise you won’t be able to sleep the next night.

Rule Four. Get a dog or a cat, or even a mouse. It will need feeding at some point, otherwise you will have to deal with a dead body. This will only make you feel even more abandoned than you did already. And so will it.

Rule Five. Go shopping for pet food. Not all that fascinating, but it gets you out of the house.

Rule Six. Buy bird food while you are out shopping. Birds are fun. If you sit quietly, birds are quite uplifting.

Rule Seven. Buy human food while you are out shopping. If you don’t want it, then the dog will, probably while you are still thinking about eating it.

Rule Eight. Take up knitting. It’s surprising how much knitting you can do when you are bored out of your mind.

Rule Nine. Never worry about talking to yourself. You always get the right answers.

Rule Ten. Take up blogging. But think of your own subject, and don’t pinch mine.

I suspect that I could well be talking to myself here. But what’s new. A Demain.