A few years ago I decided I needed a change. I am no great adventurer and wasn’t planning to tour the world on a motorbike, join an Indian ashram or go to live off-grid on a remote Scottish island. I just wanted to live in a different place and do different things. Sir Ranulph Fiennes I am not. I have lived this long with all ten fingers still in place and am hoping to keep it that way. As a result, all I did was move from one side of the county to the other. Still, it was different.
Change is often lovely when we choose it, but all too often we have no choice. One unavoidable, but devastating change is when we lose people that we love. I have spent this past year getting used to the idea of being an orphan and realising that now I am the older generation. Naturally, I have much wisdom to impart, but can’t seem to find anyone keen to listen. There is a myth floating about that previously our elders were respected and revered and that the modern world is in thrall to youth. I only knew three of my grandparents, but I certainly didn’t hang on their every word and, if I’m honest, it was quite the opposite. They all seemed distant, out-of-touch and impossibly ancient to me. Considering that my grandfather died when he was in his 60s, I’m starting to understand why my wisdom isn’t being avidly sought.
But change can also be wonderful and I’ve been thinking about all the new things I’ve done this past year. We’re less than an hour’s drive away from our previous home, so can still see our friends, but we have a town life now rather than a village life. We used to live opposite a field, but now our house is right on a street and attached to the one next door. I know it wouldn’t suit everyone, but the advantage is that nothing is too far away and we can walk or cycle nearly everywhere.
December has been full of local events. First, we went to the Christmas lights switch-on, which was a bit anticlimactic to tell the truth. But so well attended – I didn’t know there were that many people in Newbury. My next activity was a lantern-making workshop. I didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to be doing, but came home on that dark and rainy afternoon clutching a wet and gluey mess in the shape of a teepee. Miraculously, it eventually dried and started to resemble something vaguely like a lantern. Two weeks later we took part in the lantern parade, which was amazing. To be in a parade with 680 lanterns (who counted them all?!) with drummers at the front and back, and 3,000 people crowding the streets was magical. It had even stopped raining.
Carol singing in our neighbourhood was the next big event and there must have been a hundred of us warbling away. Sadly, only one person was carrying a lantern – ours had all been scooped up by the town maintenance crew while we were enjoying mulled wine in the Corn Exchange. I think there might be a lesson there. We sang carols and Christmas songs, somewhat out of tune and not all at the same time, collected money for local charities and enjoyed mulled something or other at the end. The next night was Christmas Eve and the big reveal of the final Living Advent Calendar window. A snow cannon had been rustled up from somewhere and cotton snowballs too. Sometimes you just have to fake it.
It was a December full of novelty and fun, which is what I had been hoping for. Who knows what next year will bring, but my vote is for peace and neighbourliness. Happy New Year.