2012

We've been talking about you, 2012, for so long, I feel I know you already.  As someone who puts little faith in pre-planning life, most years are a blank slate—perhaps blank notebook fits the metaphor a bit better—when the cover opens in January.  Here's 2012 with full pages for two-thirds of the year already. Wedding planning will fill the early months for Susan's wedding in May. Before that, there is a wedding in California in April; the Queen's Diamond Jubilee gives the nation a special holiday in June; the grandchildren will be visiting for July; and the Olympics and Para-Olympics will cap off the summer.

Blessedly, the final third of the year's pages remain blank at the moment, but events, anticipated and unexpected, welcome and dreaded, will always be hovering, ready to change the script or to add a paragraph or page that will alter the plan, sometimes for the good, sometimes not. I am balanced at the tip of a pyramid, never quite sure if, or when, I will slide down a side and need to rebalance the equilibrium. Pre-planning of the serious kind just makes the balance feel more tenuous, adding unnecessary stress to the mechanics. So far, so good, not too many complaints or mishaps, slides mostly rebalanced, but that doesn't stop the events, if and when, anticipated and unexpected, welcome and dreaded from hovering.

Meanwhile, 2011 ended with two weeks in Hingham for a New England Christmas with the grandchildren.

Getting the tree ready

To be transformed by Santa

For three happy children