Planning (too far?) Ahead

Well, it's not just the people I work with that are going a bit hell-for-leather with Xmas Xcitement is it? Every shop I go into now seems to have been invaded by a tinsel artist and been completely redecorated and rebranded. I suppose I should be grateful that it has only started apace in November, and I suppose I should remember that until very recently I myself was a part of this planning-so-far-ahead-its-embarrassing melee that goes on in the world of retail every Autumn. I have so many horrible memories of my time at the supermarket, and many of them are based around the awful meetings we had to endure - normally in Spring - about how to maximise December profits and how to manipulate the populous to get them buying earlier and earlier each year.  I really could go on about it for hours, but I really don't want to. What's the point of leaving something behind you if all you're going to do is relive it years later?
No thanks.
So instead I shall tell you that I am now amusing myself in the quiet times at work by practising the harmonica again, for the first time in ages. I've told my colleagues I'm learning 'Jingle Bells' ready for the Christmas party, but in truth I'm trying to get my head around the solo from Neil Young's 'Harvest Moon'. I have this ambition to perform it at a beach party next year, late in Summer, while the sun slowly sinks below the horizon. That gives me about nine months to get it right, which even by my amateurish standards should be more than enough.

RC 8-11-23