Walking The Dog

In a few hours - and fewer hours by the time you get to the end of this procrasti-ramble - it will be another year. 2016 will be in the past and 2017 will open its doors and lie before us. Which is all pretty obvious really. This being 31st December. What perhaps isn't so obvious are the hopes and aspirations we invest in this passing into the New Year. The promises that we wish upon ourselves and that we call resolutions. Brief intermission in the ramble for a picture of the end of a winter's day The New Year's Resolution is a gift in the hands of a procrastinator. Hours ... no, days ... spent planning exactly what to pick; which dissatisfaction with oneself to correct; which dream to commit to; which impossible ambition to clamber towards. Note the words dissatisfaction, dream and impossible and call me a cynic. Or a realist. Or a resolution agnostic. Why do we accede to the annual resolution humiliation? Where and when did resolution-making start? Why do I h...

What makes you happy? What makes me happy? Finding good words written on a page; discovering adventure in a book and not turning back; laughing and calling my daughter a Giggle-Monger and finding that she liked it and laughing more; shopping for presents; eating too much food in good company; planning Christmas and remembering Christmases past when little hands decorated the tree with a skirt of decorations, all at 1-2 feet above ground level and the top of the tree bare; cooking a feast; sharing the feast; hugs; ice-cream ... always ice-cream; and chocolate; a pale crisp white wine or a fruity beaujolais, and feet. No, not the smelly, hair-sprouting, thick nailed sort. No. Definitely not! The fall of feet - the feet of my children and their friends and our friends and family - as they walk into our home and do a soft-foot-settling-contented-happy shuffle. On my floors. Feet. Feet on floors. The footfall of passing lives. Here. At home. At Christmas. But ... but ... but ... ...