It’s New Year’s Eve. I drove home from a tea party a little after 6 p.m. It’s an annual tradition amongst the older generation of my husband’s family. It’s wonderfully Dickensian, taking place in a fine Georgian house on a fine Georgian Square in our capital city where two floors are now inhabited by businesses and the top two floors by one of the family where he lives with his wife and two small children in what, from first impressions, people might consider to be the eccentric mayhem of a socialist worker but which in reality is a mortgage-free, rather splendid existence though it’s a long way down to the basement to the washing machine and he had to survive with a chemical loo up until a couple of years ago.

But he and his wife have it looking rather funky now. Funky in the manner of a flat in Kreuzberg, the quarter of Berlin best associated with all breeds of alternative, radical and social rejects (as in those that rejected rather than being rejected). Sonja, the German wife, beckoned me upstairs with a “I haven’t seen you for ages, sit down and tell me what’s been happening with you”. I took a seat (or one of the mismatched chairs) at the distressed pine table (only this one was actually distressed and fabulous and original and probably something she found on a skip). She sat opposite me, relaxed, open, with her severe German spectacles and her sharp German eyes. I started talking. I see this woman once a year, sometimes once every two years and yet I told her all about it…my 2009.

Germans have that way about them. At least five people in the 15 minutes preceding this had asked me what I had been up to and I had trotted out the same jaded “took redundancy, stay at home mum, hope to get back to work when the recession abates” line and they had all nodded understandingly and said “ah well it’s good to spend time with the kids” and I had agreed and moved on. I mean, what’s the point in attempting to explain it all? Who among these gentle, elderly, privileged, intellectuals would be able to grasp it in the few minutes that one can devote to small-talk of this type? But Germans get to the nub of the matter and the German in me instinctively knows that they appreciate truth and sincerity. As a anglophile German once said to me “when you make the friend of a German, you’ve got a friend for life”. And it’s true.

Sonja, with her matter of fact, straight as a die manner, disarmed me, stripped me of my mask and I relayed everything to her (and simultaneously stepped outside of my body and looked down at myself and said “what are you doing?”), and she sat back in her chair and lit a cigarette and regarded me as someone whose story was genuinely interesting her and when I stopped she said “I think that’s fantastic, really fantastic” and she meant it because they do, Germans, otherwise they just wouldn’t say it. She then said something about being in control of one’s own destiny and how important that was and that one must embrace the opportunities life presents and do what feels right. I had such a nice time with her for those twenty minutes in that high-ceilinged kitchen where the sink splash-back was an ancient Dunlop tyres sign and I tripped down the stairs with renewed confidence and joined the others, smiling, effusing, embracing, sipping Lady Grey tea from a delicate china cup poured from a delicate silver teapot, and feeling great about the end of this year.

As I drove home, it started snowing heavily and my 3 year old clapped her hands with glee in the back of the car and I realised that she didn’t remember snow because she was only 8 months old when we spent a Christmas in Germany with 2 foot of snow outside our hotel for 10 days. It has stopped snowing now but I hope it freezes and I hope we have more snow tonight and tomorrow I’ll start 2010 by building a snowman for a little girl filled with the wonder of it all. Einen guten Rutsch ins Neue Jahr!

I’ve had one of those weeks. I know everyone has bad weeks but this one was a killer. My beloved football club obsession is becoming millstone-like. I’m not sleeping. I’m not eating properly, as in I haven’t time for proper meals so I’m snacking on whatever is easy and generally unhealthy. I’m seriously neglecting my family and friends. I’m arguing with my football friends, probably because we’re all too enmeshed in the madness that is our club and when people are tired and stressed, they fight with those closest to them. Money is non-existent, we’ve got debts, we’ve got to make tough decisions, cut budgets, risk pissing off lots of people and that feelgood factor that surrounded the club when we survived relegation this season has long since been replaced by despondency and frustration.

It feels a lot like we’re clinging to a shipwreck and hoping to God the tide will turn and carry us back to dry land. The problem is that the only dry land is a very bleak desert island. There might be a coconut tree or two on it but there’s not much else; not much shelter from tropical storms, not much in the way of food and I’m wondering how you could fashion a raft out of the few bits of debris lying about.

But faced with the alternative which is being swept back out into unchartered waters with no certainty as to what might lie ahead, whether an ocean liner might appear on the horizon and save us or whether we might drown, that desert island is utopic by comparison and I’ll take it.

I attended a gospel choir Christmas concert tonight, a welcome respite from my week. I very much enjoy the occasion of Christmas – the music, the carols, the collective friendliness of people. The concert was particularly joyous, the singing and the musicians spectacular. I was moved more than once, especially when a lone pianist played and sang “Have yourself a merry little Christmas”.

Afterwards, I drove through the main street of our capital city, hoping to glean some sense of festive cheer. I was sorely disappointed. Despite a very creative Christmas tree on the central promenade made completely from various sized lighted balls that changed colour, the atmosphere was muted and bleak.

The message from the concert tonight was “Discover the beauty within”. Someone said to me recently that maybe we need to stop looking further afield and look back to what is in our own community. Instead of spending vast sums of money that we don’t have on trying to create a master race of a football team, try to cultivate local talent and make a community proud of its own rather than supporting people who turn up for the weekly match and then disappear back to where they came from. Maybe it’s time to start discovering the beauty within!

I think there’s a balance to be struck somewhere. We’ve got to learn from mistakes and live within our means and focus on what’s good and vital and cultivate those things. It’s a message that transcends football clubs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x55fCkqutjU

Hello out there! Yes, the silly season it truely upon us. I  can only imagine that we are all so un-idle  at the moment that we have no time to blog?  I can even get the good smells wafting over the air waves and hear the sound of rustling wrapping paper. There must be lots of fabulous Christmas traditions happening. What’s yours? let me know.

I feel it’s ok to mention the ‘c’ word now….Christmas! This time next month it will be over or even this day four weeks, the turkey will almost certainly be looking more like sandwich meat rather than a hot dinner. Which reminds me, I must make stuffing balls this year again as they make a tasty addition to leftovers.

Not that I am wishing it away, don’t get me wrong. I am just pacing myself. November brought a week of swine flu hand a week of bad weather and this has been a great distraction. We actually avoided both of these threats in our house but none the less they were a concern and also were a great talking point. And lest I get too confident, I will ‘touch wood’ just to protect us all from either of these two disasters.

 But for me, what was good about the distraction was that November passed with very little consideration for Christmas and December starts with a greater appreciation for Christmas! This year, I am feeling thankful that we are all healthy and that we have a safe roof over our heads. So, let’s hope I hold onto that thought for the next four weeks and let it help me focus on what’s important. And don’t forget the stuffing balls!