The end of the year Draws Near...

 December 26th, 2020

The end of the year draws near, and I ask myself, "do I look forward to this next year, and what it will bring as I age?"  In another seven days I will be 96, and although I have good health and still a wondering outlook on life, sometimes I feel my physical strength draining slowly away.....

Well, it has always been my motto 'to keep right on to the end' and I guess I am not going to collapse now - or ever!

Still, some days I feel more energetic than I do on other days, and some days my spirit is not as jolly and confident as I would like it to be!  Some days I find myself being somewhat confused, and very much aware of this, - and that's not the end of life I look forward to!  I suppose the answer is to keep each day as sinple as possible, and as well ordered (which is not hard, as apart from visits from children I am quite alone and have no events or persons to complicate my life).  But I have to be aware, at all times, and indulge myself with notes and reminders in my daily book.

It is a strange way to be living, these days, what with the pandemic and nothing really happening as it usually has, - there is no church, no singing sessions, or ukulele hours, - I haven't been to the store since last March, and I am so thankful to have space outside and a garden to wander in, and the plans I make for spring when it comes time to plant a bit and watch for little scarlet buds swelling through the rain - soaked earth.

I am so thankful that when Charles and I were first engaged and dreaming dreams of family life when we married on his return from Overseas, during the war years  - so thankful that we decided we would have six children (which we did) who are such a blessing to me now that most of my friends have passed on to the next life that awaits us, elsewhere!!!

I think it might snow tonight, - and I look forward to that, although people who have to drive probably don't anticipate snowy roads!!!  I was thinking tonight about prairie winters, in Edmonton, where I lived from the time I was born until I left to be married.  We skated every day, - and started early in life, on bob skates and a backyard rink that my father faithfully built and watered for the little ones in the neighbourhood.  As we got older we advanced to the Alberta Avenue rink, which still survives, and the band that played for skating on Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons.   I think fondly of winter walks in the snow, as it crunched under your boots, and the blue sky and sunshine that was so prevalent on the prairies in Alberta.

The holidays have been lovely, (although nobody has been inundated with family and visitors) but I look forward to January and dressing the looms so I can start creating again, and throwing the shuttle!

I think tomorrow I will wind a linen warp and prepare it to put on the LeClerc, and then I will gather up some hearty wool and weave a krokbagd rug, and I will be back in the swing of things, after all the December holiday days.

Lovely thought!  I will ;post a picture when it is finished...