XS4all

At my last place of work we had a Box. The Box was the general repository for all ‘unwanted valuable items’ and its invention was one of the best strokes of genius I have come across in a long while. Sadly, now I have left that place of work and moved to another location and the Box is no longer available to me.

I could really use that Box now! The idea was that anyone on the 400-strong staff could deposit their unwanted books, CDs, clothes, household goods, Christmas presents and ‘excesses’ in the Box and be rid of them without guilt or waste. Someone else always wanted and appreciated them and bore them away, rejoicing at their good fortune. Problem solved! No blame, no shame. A win-win situation.

But now I have no access to the Box and the post-Christmas blues have set in. The fridge is too full; I didn’t need that extra tea cosy – I already have three; I don’t like rum-flavoured sweets; I’ve already read the book I was given and I’m sick of mince pies! If I could just gather up all these unwanted leftovers and well-meant gifts and make someone else happy it would make my Christmas complete: giving and receiving, recycling and redistributing. No-one need know. No-one need be offended. Win-win all the time.

I have a plan. At the moment it is ill-formed and incomplete but it is turning into a campaign – a New Year’s Resolution of grand proportions. I shall institute the Neighbourhood Box, to go alongside the Neighbourhood Watch in my street. Maybe the idea will catch on. Maybe in this age of electronic mailing we could recycle some of those redundant red letter boxes and develop a recycling box on every street corner. We would be free to post our unwanted items in the top and each resident would be issued with a key, like the postman, to help themselves to whatever they fancied or needed.

 

Maybe next year my idea could go global. However, there would have to be a few rules about what could be posted, however much we would like to be rid of them and no matter how guilty we felt about the waste. No yapping dogs, no irritating teenagers, no cast-off spouses and, above all, no leftover turkey or brussel sprouts! Some things just can’t be boxed. But some of us have so much and some of us have too much, so why not spread it around and benefit some of those who have too little? One man’s poison is, after all, another man’s meat.

Room at the Inn!

It's a strange Christmas this year... In October I decided to make my Christmas cake and puddings. My mother always said these should be made early in order for the flavours to develop and mature so that they would be at their best by the time Christmas came. I took her advice for once this year, although she has been gone for nine years now. Mothers know best.

Late in October I sold my house! Since then there has been a mad, crazy scramble to sort, pack, clean, tidy, organise, cancel, say goodbye... no time for baking; no time for Christmas.

Now it's Christmas Eve and I discovered that this year, just like before, there is room at the inn! We're homeless since three days ago - new people own our house now, our belongings are in store and we're off to find a new home. But we haven't found one yet and I'm so glad that I have a family back home and they're willing to share theirs with us! Thanks sis!

We have two whole rooms and a bathroom of our own. We have shelves and a couple of cupboards. We have overflow space in the garage for all our extra things we may need before the removal company redeliver our things to our new address. We have central heating. We have a warm bed and we're invited for Christmas. We have a turkey. And there's Christmas cake and pudding! But best of all we have family. Pretty good for a couple of refugees!

Thank you family! And a very merry Christmas, one and all.

Such Sweet Sorrow

It’s in my thoughts all the time at the moment. ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow’ wrote Shakespeare and it’s true. Like a helping of sweet and sour sauce! We’re leaving the Netherlands and every move I make the thought comes back – is this the last time? I sit on the tram, not reading my book this time, but gazing silently out of the window, lost in thought…

Things I love, things I hate drift past the window: the grey fog, the ugly buildings in the poorer parts of town, the graffiti (not always a work of art) and the drab clothing that emerges each winter – black and grey, grey and black. But I pass sights that I love – the lifting bridge over the canal, a work of mechanical genius that the Dutch are so good at, a barge gliding softly along the smooth canals, a flower shop, a shop selling cane furniture and wicker baskets and the bikes – trailing dogs, carrying babies, sleepy toddlers, crates of beer … almost anything, whilst their owners answer their mobile phones or warm their hands in their pockets!

Parting – it happens to me every day. Is this the last time that I will make this journey? Is this the last time that I will sit at Kathy’s table, laden with the results of her lovingly produced creative cooking, surrounded by familiar friends with whom I can forget to brush my hair, tell my secrets, risk exposing my attempts at writing a literary masterpiece? There’s sadness involved in parting.

But it’s sweet too. It focuses the mind. Each time it happens I am filled with joy that these things, these places, these adventures, these friends have been mine. And they will always be mine to keep: memories filed away, shared experiences, high points and low points. Yes, I’m leaving, but I am enriched, enlarged, inspired by so many things. There are painful partings, I know, but this is a good one and I shall remember it with happiness.