“Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” With thanks to Clement Clark Moore who wrote those lines and in my house tonight on this Christmas Eve, 2019, such a scenario has certainly unfolded. At least, I hope there are no mice stirring! The aged Staffordshire Bull Terrier has flaked in her bed in the corner and is making the odd guffawing sound to indicate that she is indeed still alive. It’s one of those things. Every time I get up in the morning I freeze in the doorway when I see her. Is she still breathing? The rise and fall of her stomach over her sparse and elderly ribs answers in the affirmative but I know her day is coming. I have been particularly worried about her in our recent spate of hot weather but she is a tough old dog, apparently.
She’s never been particularly endearing. not exactly affectionate. Always ready to run for miles when you left the gate open, now, in her dotage, she’s left to merely exist. Do they know they are old now I wonder? I sometimes wish and certainly hope that when it comes, her passing will be peaceful, in her bed, as we all might like to go. But I’m not looking forward to it.
As for the human inhabitants of the house well, I’m it. Linda has absconded to Brisbane for the Christmas break, leaving me to hold the fort in the interim. All my work, the little of it that there was on this Christmas Eve, is done and there is really nothing left to do but head to the land of nod and be ready for Christmas morning which is starting exceedingly early. 6.30am to be exact so I will have to be up and firing with the birds.
It will almost certainly be my last post for 2019. It’s been a year that has at times been stressful, not an emotion that I am particularly use to and not one I was expecting to be suffering from in this last 12 months but of course any worry I had was diluted by a six week sojourn in Europe and happy memories with Linda and my niece and nephew who are domiciled in France at the moment.
Blogging has been slow and Strange Notations isn’t going to be hitting the top of the boards of the most read lists of 2019 but I am hoping to make some improvements in 2020 and be more prolific with my writing. I’m sure you all are looking forward to that!!
And of course I will knock up a half century of age in May. It’s a strange thing. For me, and I am sure it’s different for everybody, being on the cusp of 50 is like riding a slide which is getting steeper by the metre. Faster and faster you go, the wheel of time turning with alacrity, matching your fall into middle age until, suddenly, bang! The fall is arrested and you are flying and flaying until you land with a thud on the wrong side of the time keeper of life. You become more aware of your mortality and occasionally wish you could take a chainsaw to your age and lop off 20 years and start again. Unfortunately we can’t stop that clock and just as well too. Imagine the mess humans would make of that sort of privilege.
So, Merry Christmas to all from Strange Notations from a Laborious Life. I sincerely wish all of you the best and lots of fun and enjoyment with family and friends.
I will be back in 2020!
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 