Well, That's a Fail

I'm talking about NaNoWriMo because let's face it if I've only managed about 6,000 words by now the hope of reaching 50,000 is long gone. I have reasons - of course, I have - and they are quite genuine but I knew much of this was going to come up before I started so I should have known better.  There were things I couldn't factor in as well - a funeral, weather which is scorching and drains the energy, medical 'stuff' for both of us (not serious but time consuming) and that's only part of it.


So I've faced reality which is that NaNoWriMo is a step too far this year. Instead I'm turning my mind to Christmas and trying to get myself organised earlier rather than later. These days I don't go crazy with Christmas decorations but I do like to do a little and this means it's time to pull the tree out of the shed and give it a hose down -  the amount of dust it accumulates even though it's sheathed in plastic always amazes me. Then I'll sort through the decorations and decide what has passed its useful time - and there's always something that has apparently spontaneously decided to crack or fall apart - and from there decide whether or not I need to invest in anything new.


We have a family tradition of putting up the tree and other decorations on the first weekend of December and then taking the whole lot down on the traditional date of January 6 and I think that's quite long enough for it to be up. There seems to be a tendency these days - largely due to commercial drivers - to extend the seasons for festivals of all kinds and I think that's a pity. One of our local supermarkets has taken to selling traditional Easter hot cross buns year round for example. This irritates me not so much because it's a break from tradition but because it takes away something that's unique to a particular time and something that could be looked forward to and savoured. If you have Easter buns all year there's nothing special about them, is there, so why bother?

It seems to me that this is all part of the way we live now where we seem to seek instant gratification and waiting for something is just too hard. Well, I refuse to give in to this because often anticipation is as much part of the delight as the actual event itself. This means I try to live by the principle of 'to everything there is a season' although others might find it odd and in line with that I'll keep to my traditional rituals and let each spark some pleasure because small joys are the things that make our lives worth living, don't you think.