Christmas alone

I have spent Christmas alone in 2009 deliberately albeit not in the way I intended it to be. I have done it before back in 2006 and but then it was unintended. So in 65 years, just 2 Christmases on my own; not a bad record I suspect

2009? Yeah well, I was gonna be busy packing for West Africa on Dec 29th and anyway the kids were gonna be elsewhere. The bloody rash on my body has got in the way. 2006 was going to be an African Safari but I tripped on the stairs and broke a rib. But that led to happiness for I then did the big safari in 2008. Might never have bothered if 2006 had gone well.

In reality, I simply don’t live alone at Christmas for I am lucky. I get a spate of phone calls; I chat to my children and my family. I get text messages and Facebook messages from around this planet. I simply don’t feel alone and for that I guess I am lucky. When I went to Malaysia for Christmas some years ago, I managed to rack up 1,500 quid in phone calls, outgoing and incoming.

The Times reports today that half a million people spent Christmas Day alone but how do they define it? Yes I was the only person in this house but note the communications above for I never felt alone. Then we get the observation that half the over-65’s say that television is their main company. Well that’s really bloody sad for our 5 terrestrial channels are consummate shite. If they were all I had to depend upon then it would be suicide tomorrow.

I am quite happy with my own company and you are free to put your own interpretation on that. I talk to myself quite a lot; it’s my way of mulling things over, getting things clear etc. My lovely secretary of 11 years, Linda, never got quite used to it. I’d be at my desk muttering and she’d pop her head round the door and ask if I wanted something. I’d just say I was talking to myself and she’d say, ‘OK.’

Right now, I don’t know what it must feel like to be alone. I just hope that I never shall.