Getting Settled Into The New Year

[poliphilo]

I like to have a calendar on the wall. Last year we bought one and received another as a Christmas gift. The first featured a set of Alice in Wonderland illustrations and the second a set of miscellaneous illustrations by Arthur Rackham (his Father Christmas was a big creepy goblin surrounded by lots of little creepy goblins pretending to be toys). This year we've bought and been given nothing and what I've got hung up in the kitchen is one of the three we were sent unsolicited by the charities my mother supports.

The heat is going out of the family crisis. My mother-in-law (for it is she) is in hospital, facing a longish stay (nothing much wrong with her but old age- she's 89)- with a spell in rehab to follow and the relatives on the ground seem to have things in hand. We are responsible for the full-time care of another old lady at the far end of the country- and the only way we could manage this second one is if she moved to Kent- which is something she resists. Drama is good for us: it teaches us about ourselves. There's no drama in what we (inaccurately) call the afterlife (only love, love and more love) and I'm told we rather miss it.

Comments

[cmcmck]

We could never get his mum to come down to Kent either so I know that one!

[poliphilo]

She's lived in Greater Manchester ever since coming over from Northern Ireland as a child.

[cmcmck]

Same thing- born and bred in Torbrex and lived there all her life.

[basefinder]

Even in this day of electronics I keep a paper calendar on the wall.

I'm not sure why, since I also print my electronic calendar and that sits on my desk.

Old habits die hard.

[poliphilo]

I'm lazy about some things- and more likely to call up a quotation online than walk to the bookshelf- but if I want to know the date it still seems reasonable to go look at the calendar on the wall.

[basefinder]

For many years The Calendar was my historical record; I still have old calendars (scanned) going back to the 1970s. Not a complete set, and some years I was more dutiful than others in keeping track of comings and goings and important events.

I suppose now those scribblings could just go in my online calendar. Yet, I just scanned 2018 and added it to the .pdf collection.