Thursday 1st November

November can be the cruelest of months, with the last vestiges of summer behind us, and only damp and misty weather and cold hard winter to look forward to.  Almost everyone is at work too, hardly anyone chooses to take their holidays in this bleakest of months.  The tubes are crowded and people are togged up with winter woolies and hats and umbrellas, and try as you might you simply cannot find those gloves your sister gave you for Christmas, or was that last year – they all begin to roll into one, never mind – you will probably get some more this year.

But my – how the year has sped past.  In a few weeks we will be out rushing about, trying to buy those last few Christmas essentials again.  And it is the again-ness of it all that is so depressing.  Christmas comes but once a year, but as it approaches on the horizon, even that once can feel once too many.  Today has been a little hiatus, we are both full of cold, it is gently raining and apart from a quick nip out this morning  for pain and lait we are staying in today.  No more slapping around Hypermarches, no more French departement stores with their two hour lunch-breaks, no more assembling yet another cupboard or table.  We are having a reste, and in its way this is such a luxury.  To just be doing nothing, a terrible waste, but enjoyable too.