I was just looking through my photos for this time last year and saw that the village Christmas lights were already up by the end of November. I came home in the dark last night but don’t remember seeing them, and the photo I took may have been from slightly later in the month, but I can see the triangular trees of Yialos from the balcony already, so it looks like the decorating has begun.
When we first moved here, you could, as Neil puts it, ‘Blink and miss Christmas,’ because it was a much quieter affair than it is now. By which I mean, few houses were decorated for the season, and there were fewer adverts for Christmas consumables on the television. There are more trees, sleighs and snowflakes adorning houses these days, more TV hype for gifts of all shapes and sizes, and definitely more decorations around the village (when they go up).
We were also having different weather, of course, because that’s always changing, but there were still plenty of clear, sunny days that may look warm in the photo, but, like now, were cold. I was, as I still am, in my office with the shutters closed and the curtain drawn to keep out some drafts, and with my mind set to ‘create’ as I plough through research books and notepads, and I work on my next creation. In this year’s case, it’s a set of short stories held together by an overarching short story set on a train. This is to be a new series of spin-offs from my Clearwater, Larkspur and Delamare series of Victorian mysteries, and it is due out in a couple of weeks. In the absence of anything else to show you, I’ll share the cover with you, and let you wonder if you recognise any of the characters.
