Yesterday, I said that I knew Ma was ill because she didn’t want to read. That was pretty much me in December. I watched a lot of Grey’s Anatomy but read hardly anything at all. Two books.
I’ve had this (and the next two books) on the TBR list on my Kindle for a while. And this is my second attempt at it, it took a while to understand what was going on and to picture it in my head. Part of that was the language which was clever and part of it was the impossibility for me of imagining being in the dark all of the time. The setting is a world far away from Earth were two people are left on a world with no sun. The flora and fauna are bio-luminescent and outside of the forests, the world is cold, snowy and dark. The story starts about 5 generations after the first two, and all human life is the produce of incestuous relationships. There is something quite horrifying about being so desperate for sex that you would sleep with your brother for a start. So with the world being in darkness and that, the world of Dark Eden is very dark. So we have an interbred population, some of them are ‘batfaces’ (harelip) or ‘clawfeet’ and there has been a huge amount of linguistic drift which the tellers of the story use. It was really interesting to see the adaption to the world in the use of language. Time starts to be measured in ‘wombtimes’ because without a sun to rise or set the concept of a day doesn’t make any sense. The story really charts the rise of patriarchy in this world were everyone appears childlike and the oddness of people who have never experienced things like electricity or buildings talking about them. From the outside the way that the people of Eden have discarded things they don’t need or don’t work or can’t use – reading, clothes, buildings and reduced life and language down to the basics is something to think about. I don’t know if I enjoyed this or not, I was vaguely repulsed by the characters all the way through but I wanted to find out how it was going to end. I’m looking forward to the next book, which is set 400 years after this one, to see how Chris Beckett thinks his society has developed.
Man Hands – Sarina Bowen and Tanya Eby
I was disappointed with this. It was all a bit easy and while I didn’t expect it to be the most intellectually challenging book, this was light even by those standards. I think there wasn’t enough, the heroine and hero had horrible things happen to them but I didn’t really feel that they needed to recover from them or grow in any way in order to move forward. It was all poof, sorted done.
And that’s what I read in 2017.
The full list is here.
Ma is still poorly, Ma is very rarely ill but she’s off coffee and booze and is having problems reading, which is the trifecta of really sick for her (and me for that matter). Meanwhile, I am feeling very clever because against her protests, I was right about solutions to two problems she was having which she didn’t think would work! They did. More people should listen to me, I am wise!
Breakfasts are egg cups and veg. Lunch is soup (make with squash I grew in the summer and yeah, I’m feeling pretty good about that!) and salad (salad not pictured). Snacks are an orange, an apple, pineapple, yoghurt, mini cheddars and a marzipan thing. That is 7 portions of fruit and vegetables. Dinners are not as strictly planned but I have a couple of options – more lentil soup, stir fry, roasted vegetables and sausages, fish and steamed vegetables, Friday Night I will eat pizza, so I’m not worried.
Dinners sorted, I wanted breakfast, lunches and snacks to be ready to go. This is breakfast and snacks. Pineapple, yoghurt with breakfast sprinkle and a granola bar. Snacks are two clementines, a pear, cheese stars and a cherry marzipan thing. Yes that’s a lot but I wanted to cover all bases and if I don’t eat it all that’s fine. I’ve bagged them up and I can just grab a bag from the fridge in the morning.
Lunch is the only thing that requires some daily work because I only have one lunch box! Chopped salad (cucumbers, pepper, carrot and mushrooms) with roast beef and a mustard balsamic dressing. 
I have to do that as soon as I come home before I eat dinner and put it in the fridge for the next day.
So I spend December waiting and on Christmas Eve after 
Then I’ll have 12 days with the tree up. It’ll fill the house with greenery and glittery lights, it will twinkle through the in between days and New Year’s Eve and get me through the first couple of grim days as I go back to work and deal with the commute and then on Twelfth Night, we take it down and put Christmas away. 
Christmas is a restful, bright time in the middle of winter and I understand why in older traditions, the Church was still in Christmastide until Candlemas in February! This time of year we need Christmas, there is quite a bit of time between now and Spring, why are we in such a hurry to take it all down and go back to normal? Is it because we started it prematurely? I love the brief bright 12 days of Christmas and although I am going to spend this week re-entering normal, I’m going to keep my twinkly tree up until tomorrow!
I’m very fortunate to be able to do that but it has been making me think about other gifts I can give myself. In this instance it’s about the gift of preparation.
Which leads me to goals for January because instead of thinking of them as goals or tasks or resolutions, I’m going to think of them as gifts that I’m giving myself because January is going to be tough enough as it is.
Growing is something that we just do but the last year and a half of allotmenting has taught me that for growing to be a success, it doesn’t just happen. You need to plant the right seeds, you need to give them good conditions, you need to water them when it’s dry, you need to prevent them from being smothered in weeds, you need to harvest at the right time.
I am blessed to have made it through 2017 and to be able to drink champagne and admire my tree.
There were two excited little boys, eventually. Littlest was having a nap and eldest got an X-box so not a lot of conversation from those two for a bit.
Ben and Laura cooked dinner and it was good.
There were racing turkey crackers, we lost a turkey courtesy of the toddler…
We hung out and chatted and when the baby went to bed (ok was taken to bed) we played monopoly (Sonic Monopoly of course)
It was fun.
Nic Dempsey 