A funny time of year…

Boxing Day is almost over. The day started out crisp with one of those powder blue winter skies that seemed to be tinged with the lemonest of yellows - a citrus winter sky, smelling of lemons and tangerines. Now though, it’s raining heavily, the clouds have come in over the fields and I can hear the rain drumming on the windows as I sit by the fire drinking mulled wine and feeling the dregs of Christmas sip away for another year. Well, it’s me that’s sipping them away as I sit and think about how we will soon be passing across into the Between time.

Between time - that time between the end of Boxing Day and New Years Eve when time doesn’t exactly stand still but does seem to merge into a solid lump of hour-on-hour sameness - that funny time when life loses any semblance of pattern. That time waiting for the Old Year to draw its final breath before the New Year is slapped into life with a cry of ‘Happy New Year’.

Maybe it’s the heavy Christmas eating and drinking, but meals seem to become confused about when they should be eaten. I seem to want breakfast at supper time, tea and cake for lunch, a salad sandwich for breakfast - and wine at any time.

Or perhaps it’s the TV, soaps in the morning, afternoon and evening and even more soaps to fill the gaps. What day is it? Soapday! What time is it Soap o’clock! Thing is, at this time of year the murder, unfaithfulness, and misery of the soaps can feel more real than the reality of Between time.

Or maybe it’s the endless conversations about Christmas present disappointment and how you could have got ‘it’ for half the price in the Boxing Day sales (and completely killed the joy of Christmas morning surprise in the process).

Of course it could simply be that we are surrounded by incoming family for far too long over Christmas often continuing into the Between time, enhancing and magnifying its surreal unreality, as I have conversations about things I have absolutely no interest in, with people I hardly ever see, and really don’t mind not seeing them much anyway.

Yes, the Between time – how unsettling - like a half-remembered dream about something you only half-remember in a half-forgotten way.

Well, this year will be different. I will combat Between time with activity and counter activity. I will move my Christmas presents from the side of my chair where I balanced them on Christmas morning. I shall go for that long walk on the beach I’ve been talking about since Christmas Eve. I will not go the sales in the mistaken belief that I am going to find something I really want at a fraction of the price I would normally pay. I will do things and not do things – there will be no Between time.

This year there will be no Between time. Yes, this year will be different. Just wait and see.

Do you hear the Old Year – its still breathing…just?