Prepare and reflect

The onset of Advent in the last days of November is supposed to be the herald of great joy at the jollities to come, but for most of us who have left childhood behind it seems to have become a season of dread. How to get through all that shopping and scribbling of cards with the same old time-worn message, ‘Another year gone and still nothing done’? Worse still, all those dreadful parties, fuelled by gassy champagne and greasy snacks. All I want to do, as soon as the leaves fall and the nights draw in, is to go into hibernation, and it requires a superhuman effort to venture out after dark. (I’ve always suspected that my earlier incarnation was as a dormouse.)

But in the past couple of years I’ve discovered a new way of approaching this melancholy time of year, when everything else in the natural world goes dormant but society expects us to be at our most energetic and convivial.