So this is Christmas...

So this is Christmas
And what have we done?
Another year over
A new one just begun

Five years ago I was facing my first Christmas Eve & Christmas morning without my little girl. It was her dad's turn to have her. As a fully fledged member of Adulthood, there was no real problem with this although I wasn't relishing the thought of spending the beginning of the yuletide festivities at home with my cats - that was a life statement I was ready to make!

And there he was. My knight in shining armour. He suggested he stay over on Christmas Eve and head off to his mum's Christmas dinner the next day. I hadn't asked him to. I hadn't even dropped subtle hints, ready to get annoyed at him if he didn't pick up on them. We'd only been seeing each other a matter of weeks (about 6 by my calculation) so I was still trying to dish out the 'crazy' in very small portions, if at all!

Fast-forward a few years and he stepped up in a far more important way. Despite having done it before, it would seem that giving birth for a second time - to our enormous son - was a task for which I was ill-equipped. And without him right by my side I would still be there now trying to deliver an 18 month old!

But that little gesture five years ago - that act of kindness - is what he is all about. He hides it well under the façade of being a grumpy bugger most of the time. Bah Humbug and all that. But when something matters, large or small, he knows.

Merry Christmas, I love you.

A blog's a funny thing...

It starts off as a thought, an idea, an aspiration

Quickly it becomes a project, an outlet, an escape

Quicker still, a responsibility, a weight, a burden

Rather than freeing, it has become a prison

Rather than inspiring, it conspires

No longer harnessing creativity but harbouring impotence

Finally, it becomes what it is: