January 2023

Here we are again at the start of another year. I know it’s a feature of age, but time seems to be flowing past very rapidly. Galloping, really. But just recently the passage of time brought a change for the better, in that my youngest grandson, after two weeks in hospital in Athens with pneumonia and flu, was home in time for Christmas, which he thoroughly enjoyed, along with the rest of us. I pulled rank (age has its compensations) and announced that nobody was going to slave away over a hot stove: we were all quite tired. So we booked a table at a very nice restaurant on the waterfront. The weather was perfect, with cloudless skies and a reading of nineteen degrees. You can’t do much better than that for a winter’s day. The three children are always very well behaved when out, so a good time was had by all. I gave my elder granddaughter a book called Father Christmas’s Secret Mission, and it was obviously a great success, because she read it at the dinner table, something I was never permitted to do at her age.

Before I went to visit O for the first time since his return from Athens, I called in at a Christmas bazaar. There, to my very great surprise, I found a knitted koala! Of course I had to buy it for my younger granddaughter, who turns two next month. She is thrilled with it, and O has had great fun teaching her to say ‘koala’. He is critical of her pronunciation, but she is getting there, and I think she is doing very well. And she now recognizes koalas on postcards and proudly proclaims the name.

I never thought I’d have sons in three different countries, but such is the case. My eldest, who lives in Melbourne, went to the beach on Christmas Day, thus conforming to the stereotype: Brits love to think that Aussies have prawn barbies at the beach on that day every year. No. 2 now lives in Warsaw with his family. They spent Christmas in Krakow, which they dubbed a beautiful city. They also visited Auschwitz, which they said was not a Christmassy thing to do, but they did it anyway. They took part in a group tour that lasted three hours, and said it was mercifully low-key. But they were still inevitably left with a great deal to think about. I’m not sure whether I would visit, not being sure how or if I would cope with the experience. On the other hand, it may well be our duty to the past and memory to visit if the opportunity arises.

The whole matter of New Year’s resolutions is rather vexed, if you ask me. I have long regarded such resolutions as Piecrust Promises (made to be broken) to myself, as it’s a good year if my resolutions last a week. A writer in The Guardian says you should never write your resolutions down, and you should never mention them to anybody else. A sound approach, I think. He says his one resolution (and he clearly is telling other people) is to stop worrying. A good idea, and one in which I would like to join.

Unfortunately, there is a great deal to worry about. When has the world been in such a mess? It’s hard to say, I suppose, as every era has and has had its grave trials. And these days we receive much more information more quickly than ever before, a fact that is not at all comforting. And it does seem as if greed, self-interest and fear carry the day most often. (Many politicians have a lot to answer for: politics at present seems to attract a large number of dubious, unethical people.) Then there’s the matter of indifference: most people feel their lives are in order if they can manage their mortgages, drive a good car, and look forward to good meals and enjoyable holidays. I know many people do good, consciousness-raising work, but it’s hard to estimate how successful (or not) their efforts are.

Of course some people keep on going no matter what. I have a friend, for example, who has just had a letter of complaint about the state of local pavements published in her local paper. She is 101.

Famous Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson, who did not make old bones, once gave it as his opinion that there is no duty we neglect so much as that of being happy. One can see his point. Another consideration is that of hope. Some people consider despair to be the unforgivable sin, so presumably they think that it is our duty to keep on hoping no matter what the circumstances and prospects. They would agree that we all need to keep on shining in our own particular corners, no matter how small, and that we need to remember what lay at the bottom of Pandora’s box.