Last hurrah (almost)

Father Christmas kindly brought me a chest infection, so this has not been the greatest Yuletide week in the life of Rory. Most of the 25th was spent sweating in bed and finding it hard to breathe; and every day since has been a struggle with breathlessness, fatigue and a pounding headache.
But you know what?
It's still been a magical time and I've enjoyed so much of the time that we've spent together as a family. It wasn't the same as past Christmasses, but isn't that a good thing? Traditions are all very well and are very important to the familiarity of the atmosphere, but I think it's great that every year brings its own special methods and special significances. It's the bonus unexpected moments that get piled on top of the regular ones that make this time of year exactly what it is - WONDERFUL.
So I'm full of festive fun and The Spirit of Santa, even though I've hardly been upright and have used about half the contents of an entire pharmacy over the past 5 days. I shall be ending the year on antibiotics, but I'll still be in better health than millions of others, and at least I am blessed to live in a time where a chest infection is a treatable inconvenience rather than a painful death sentence.
Yeah, it's all good.

RC 30-12-23

So close now!

Schools have broken up now, so it's morning chaos of a different kind in the Chesworth household! Mathew thinks Father Christmas should come today, as why should we be waiting once school is finished? He has a point, but we're still going to make him hold off until the proper time.
I am feeling a bit more 'with it' today, which is nice, after the gloom of earlier this week. I'm still not fully into the whole Yuletide delights - I'm not blasting out Michael Buble in the car or rewatching old movies at every possible moment - but at least I'm smiling again and feeling in touch with my fellow man. And isn't that what Christmas should be about anyway? Connection and emotion and love, not commerce and TV specials and parties?
We have a busy weekend at work, with Family Fun stuff on all three days. The staff are not overly pleased with me having booked an activity for the morning of Christmas Eve, but there'll be plenty of treats and drinks leftover for them to enjoy and/or take home with them, and it's not as if we're dragging in loads of people who would normally have the day off. I've kept the rotas as fair as possible and it's mostly seasonal people back from university who are helping out anyway, so I'm not going to feel guilty.
And, once the clearing up is done, I can hotfoot it home to enjoy a brilliant Christmas Eve afternoon, winding Mathew up to the point of excited exhaustion and diving into our large cupboard full of Christmassy snacks and sundries.
Yummy.

RC 22-12-23

It's becoming an annual tradition

It's strange that it's the 20th December and I still don't feel overly festive.
The weekend went so well and the families attending were full of thanks when they left us, and yet still it felt a bit flat. I'm surrounded by Christmas and I'm feeling empty of it. That's all I can say, really. I can't get to the bottom of it, I don't want to overanalyse it, and I wish I could make it stop, but I can't. And the more I think about it the harder it seems to be to turn it around. I guess keeping it in my head is giving it power and making it harder to get through. If I can somehow accept it, then ignore it, I think it might bugger off and leave me in peace and allow me to enjoy the festivities with delight and joy. That works with anxiety, and insomnia, and other depressive spells, so it should hopefully work with Christmas cheer (or the lack of it) too.
I think the problem is that we're so pressured to be bouncy and buoyant at this time of year, and it's not always easy to achieve. People always have a lot going on in their lives, and the happiness of others can sometimes accentuate your own misery, and being pushed to show enthusiasm and optimism can just push you further down into the mire. Sorry to be a December downer, but it's true. At other times of year, a little low mood might pass quicker because there's no pressure to appear cheerful, whereas a glum spell in the week before The Big Day is going to feel worse because you 'shouldn't' be feeling this way and you put extra stress on yourself trying to change it and that makes it heavier and stronger and harder to get through. I think a lot of us who are struggling a bit right now won't feel half as bad once it's the 27th and The Main Event is behind us.

RC 20-12-23

Cheerful pre-Xmas poem

EVERYTHING I DO IS BAD FOR ME

Every love affair breaks my heart
Every meal gives me heartburn
All my dreams involve me falling
Every journey has potholes
Two drinks means a hangover
Three drinks means I'm anyone's,
...and regrets
Every job is a headache
All exercise leaves me injured
Sport means cramp
Thought means confusion

except on the days when...

Love is like a golden beacon
Food brings me warmth and joy
Dreams are true flights of fantasy
Travelling brings discovery
Drinking with friends is therapy
Work gives me purpose
Exercise gives me energy
Sport means escape
Thought means inspiration

...and those days give me hope

RC 19-12-23

Such a liar...

I said, and I quote, "...my December will mostly be about poetry" and I have posted no poems since... What a let-down.
But it's not too late, of course.
Here is my first attempt to redeem myself in your eyes:

A snowdrift clogs the forefront of your mind
Winter fog is clouding thoughts
But Christmas sparkles in your heart

RC 18-12-23

Slightly happier...

It's so lovely to be looking ahead to the rest of this month with excitement and anticipation, rather than dread and apprehension. Mathew's birthday is all planned and prepared - he's having a 'party' at a soft-play venue on the day itself, with several chums from school, so we don't have to worry about hosting a mad, destructive do at our house - and the schedule for 24th to 28th December has been pretty much laid out and locked in by my wife and sisters, so there's nothing for me to worry about there.
It's all good really.
I've relaxed now about this weekend, and the other Family Festive Fun days that we're doing at work. It's all sorted and everyone knows what they're doing, and they're all looking forward to it, and I'm confident it'll all work well, so I can just get on with it now and stop having elevated anxiety levels while thinking about it.  Easier said than done, of course, but I'm doing my best.

I don't seem to be the only person who has been a bit 'stressy' recently either. I think I posted about this already, but a lot of people seem to be a bit more wound up about the holiday season than they used to be. It may just be the constant negativity that we're force-fed by the media impacting on everyone's ability to enjoy themselves, but there does seem to be a general malaise about the general populace as we enter the end days of 2023. I don't like it. I guess I'm so used to spending time with people who are on their vacation and determined to make the best of it, that it depresses me when I have to deal with normality and reality. I suppose I have always liked my ability to escape from the world by surrounding myself with my own happy thoughts while isolating, and it's not so easy to do that when you're a manager at a busy caravan site and a father to two young boys.
So, in conclusion... well, I have no conclusion really, I am just rambling (as I do so often).

RC 15-12-23

Slightly nervous...

We have our big family Christmas events happening this weekend. And when I say 'we' and 'our' I mean work, not my own family.
I feel a lot of pressure building up, but it's all coming from my own psyche, rather than from external sources. I feel ultimately responsible for the success of these things, and I fret that if it isn't all perfect, I'll be ruining December for several small children. It's not true, of course. What I'm actually doing is instigating something that will add festive fun and frivolity into the lives of lots of families, and short of electrocuting them or hiring a drunk Santa who will psychologically damage them for life with inappropriate comments, there isn't really much I can do that would destroy their childhoods.
And I think we've put together a nice little package of activities and experiences for everyone. But still, it bothers me...

RC 14-12-2

My mind is such a torrent...

There seem to be an extraordinary number of problematic bugs floating around at the moment. Covid is still pretty prevalent in parts of Suffolk, there's a terrible chesty cold ripping its way through our staff, and now a 24-hour sickness thing has surfaced that has taken out a large chunk of our cleaning and maintenance crew. I have a suspicion they may have all gone out on a big pre-Christmas night and spread it around between them, but maybe that's just my cynical brain kicking in and finding connections where they aren't. And anyway, does it matter? We're able to cover the absences without too much trauma, and if groups of staff are socialising together and having fun, I say Good Luck to them. I'm just really hoping I don't pick anything up myself. Or - if I do - that I get it now and get it over with, rather than have something turning up on the 23rd that will make me ill for The Big Day.
But, then again, isn't that just me worrying unnecessarily? I eat well and take my vitamins so it's not like I'm setting myself up for illness by being weak and lowering my immune system, and it's not as if the boys' Christmas will be ruined if Dad is a bit poorly. So I don't need to worry. And yet I still do. Because that's what I do.
Anyway, I feel all right at the moment.

RC 13-12-23

Big bulb and bad breath

I had a bizarre dream last night in which I was working in a lighthouse. I was sitting at a small desk, writing tide information and weather reports in a large book, and the sun was streaming in through the small, iron-framed window. The overnight shift had been quite quiet so there wasn't much to write about, but I seemed to be worried that the sunny morning was actually a precursor to a violent, stormy night ahead. It was very vivid. And it's not just the circumstances of that part of the dream, either - my character had a whole backstory that I was aware of, that involved an unfortunate bankruptcy after a traumatic divorce, and a problem with his hips caused by a fall from a horse in his late teens. Very odd. My beard was down to my chest, and very unkempt, and I was using strong whiskey as a mouthwash because I had forgotten to pack a toothbrush or any toothpaste. (Or maybe it was centuries ago and those things just weren't in existence yet.)
I never read too much into dreams, or what they might be telling me, but this one was very powerful. It also felt very comfortable, as if this was an existence that I could be very happy with.
I mentioned it at work, and one of our receptionist ladies (who, it must be pointed out, is a real 'angels are around us,' crystal-wearing type of woman in her late forties) told me it's probably a past-life thing, where one of the previous bodies that my soul inhabited is breaking through into the present day during my sleep. I smiled and thanked her and then cast that one aside as a load of old hokum. I think it's more likely to be a message from my future - I can genuinely see me ending up alone and cast out of society somewhere, in which case a job like a remote lighthouse keeper would be a winner. So maybe this dream was my subconscious mind's way of saying 'Don't worry, Rory, whatever happens in the next few years, you'll be fine. Even if Philippa leaves you and takes everything with her, you'll cope.'
But, you know, like I said, I don't like to read much into these things....

RC 12-12-23

Dec-aiku

Exactly two weeks
And Christmas will be with us
What a lovely thought

It's not just a day
'Tis a season of goodwill
and a time of joy

Bright decorations
a tree resplendent with lights
a nice, cosy space

RC 11-12-23

Wow! How?

I have just realised that we are fast approaching our 8th wedding anniversary. EIGHT YEARS!! That's incredible. And it also means, if my maths and my memory are working correctly, that Philippa and I have been together for nearly 13 years. THIRTEEN YEARS!! That, too, is incredible, and is a real testament to who she is as a person. Can you imagine putting up with THIS every day for more than a decade? Re-read my early blog postings and tell me if YOU would have wanted to take on that car crash of a person as a partner...  

And now here we are. It's more than a decade later, our love has done nothing but deepen, and so much has changed for the better. She is fast approaching being qualified as a physical therapist, I finally have a job I enjoy and feel proud of, we have two amazing, beautiful boys that fill our lives with noise and joy, and there seems to be no sign on either side that we're getting fed up with it all. God, I do love her.

RC 7-12-23

Ho, Ho, Ho! (ish)

I seem to have rediscovered my previously missing Christmas cheer! I am suddenly full of excitement for the upcoming activities and parties we're having at work for local families (which were feeling like a bit of a burden), I'm enjoying the tunes we are blasting through the office, and I can't wait to see Mathew diving into his pile of presents on the morning of the 25th! So maybe my December Gene has kicked in a bit and I'm finding the Joy Of The Season. It seemed to start when I chatted with Beryl at the weekend, and she was baking six different kinds of mince pies, trying to decide which recipe would be best for the family to enjoy at their upcoming get-togethers.
I guess it's really just a question of attitude though, isn't it? Nothing has really changed within me, except for my own interpretation of what's going on around me and how I want to react to it. That could be a bit deep for a midweek blog posting, but I'm sure you know what I mean. Christmas is a state of mind, not a date. You can't wait for it to wash over you at a certain time and then miraculously feel festive. You have to bathe yourself in the magic and ignore the negativity and surround yourself with people that enjoy it. And then you can let yourself go and let yourself become immersed and then you can reap the benefits. And if you're not there yet, I do send you my sympathy. It really is the most wonderful time of the year, and it will be over before we know it. If you can't grab hold and surf the super feelings while they're available, you'll only be more miserable in January.

RC 6-12-23

December Ode 1

Stuff it... I've decided... my December will mostly be about poetry!
So - to get us started - I present my aforementioned 'Dr Seuss Tribute Poem'.
To give you some context (which is always a bad idea when you're talking about a poem) we were chatting at work about flowers and insects and all sorts of weird stuff, and started realising how many words there are that rhyme with SPERM. And so I started making up a story about a sperm that came from a worm, and it spiralled from there. Someone said, "This reminds me of Dr. Seuss" and my weird brain took that on as a challenge, and this is what I came up with:

FLERM was a GERM
who lived on a WORM
who lived in the PERM
of a large PACHYDERM
He made the beast SQUIRM
when he crawled on its BERM
and when he shot SPERM
it was really quite FIRM
At school every TERM
you would hear him say, ERM....
He wasn't that bright!
So he worked for a FIRM
making THERm-al T-shirts
called Flacket & FLERM
(Nepotism is rife
in the world of the GERM.)

RC 5-12-23

Holy shit... It's Christmas Month!

It's weird how this has crept up on me - Mathew has been energetically attacking his advent calendar every morning, we've started playing Christmas tunes in the office, I've been supervising the tree decorating in each of our function rooms on each of our sites - and yet still I only just seem to have registered that it's December!
It shouldn't be a shock to me - it's certainly been cold enough to give me a hint. Minus 2 on Saturday in our garden!
I'm not going to fall into my old trap of moaning about the weather, so I shall accentuate the positives and say that Suffolk looked very, very pretty under a sharp frost, and that it is much easier to talk to your eldest child about Father Christmas when it feels likely that there might be snow on the way soon.

I've been trying to remember what it was like this time last year. I seem to recall that we were all struggling to get into 'the Christmas spirit' even when it was only three weeks away (like it is today!). Little Rian was so little that every second was about keeping him warm and happy and alive, and everything else became secondary. As any parent amongst you will know, the arrival of another young 'un is a major upheaval, even when you're already used to it from previous experience. There seems to be a disproportionate growth in difficulty - adding one more human to the mix actually upsets the rhythm of your house by about 300%.
Also worth acknowledging, I suppose (although I don't like to relive it), that last year was the first Christmas in 3 that wasn't being dominated by Covid, so we were all still finding our feet and finding a way to reinstall our traditions and remind ourselves exactly how we used to celebrate. So maybe this is still an after-effect of all that pandemic malarkey. This time of year has always brought about feelings of togetherness, love and warmth, but in recent memory it's been about separation, fear and The Virus, so it'll take a while for us all to readjust and recover psychologically.
Or maybe I'm the only person feeling like this, and you're all bouncing around full of joy like energetic elves! And if that is true, I am happy for you.

RC 4-12-23