No Noel

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We didn't need Boris Johnson to cancel the Christmas festivities for us. Following my last blog entry, we did this for ourselves. The funeral was on 23rd and somehow it just didn't seem right to put up a tree or brightly coloured lights. We hosted my mother, with whom we bubble, for dinner on Christmas Day but to have had another two households over might have been a nightmare. As one wit on social media, after hearing that the police could order relatives to move on, queried : "Can you make a booking for this service at the Police Station and is it free?" 

Despite a local outbreak of Avian Flu that has placed us on the edge of a Disease Zone according to the road signs (Covid 19 by itself is clearly no longer sufficent), we still ate turkey as well as a surfeit of trimmings, roasted vegetables and Christmas pud. In a bout of frenzied activity to keep my mind from wandering, I even made a cake; not your usual dried fruit and nut variety but what I'd like to think of as a healthy alternative. It's a bitter orange sponge cake, tastes delicious but save for the oranges has little else healthy about it. I think we were taking the view that if  famine as a result of Brexit really was going to accompany the pandemic then we had better be prepared with a cholesterol binge to get us over the food shortages.

However, having been spared the misery of food scarcity by a last minute trade deal (which for some reason the Government is hailing as a victory although the international press disagrees), it seems we are now facing the prospect of flooding with some areas of the country already protecting themselves with sandbags.

Flood, famine and pestilence: it actually sounds like a Christmas of biblical proportions and we weren't even trying.


Comments

Treaders said…
I think everyone had a rotten Christmas this year didn't they - although you of course had it worse than most. My condolences to you all!
30 December 2020 at 15:09
Caree Risover said…
Thank you Treaders. I guess I wouldn’t have been feeling festive, Covid or not, but you are right, the only scale for rating Christmas 2020 would probably be one ranking it from dire to dreadful.
30 December 2020 at 16:02
Debra Journet said…
Dear Caree, I haven’t read any blog for the last several months, so was unaware of the deep sadness you are experiencing. Sisters are so powerfully special. You share things no one else could ever know. My deepest condolences. I wish I knew you well enough and lived close enough to give you a hug. Touch seeming the only real way of communicating these days. Love, Debra
31 December 2020 at 23:18
Caree Risover said…
Thank you Debra. It’s ironic isn’t it that at a time when we need hugging to make us feel better, we have to keep at least 2 metres distance?
1 January 2021 at 09:59
Jennyff said…
It’s the saddest time of year to loose a loved one, compounded by the virus situation I cannot imagine how you are feeling. You’ve done well to get through with a semblance of normality, now take it easy and look after yourself, I am sending good thoughts and wishes,
1 January 2021 at 11:25
Caree Risover said…
Thank you Jennyff. What counts for normality now could, of course, be the issue!
1 January 2021 at 11:51
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