Lights

A woman with a teddy bear climbing out of her pocket buys candy-floss. A boy, immune to the excitement, reads his Minecraft book. The air is full of the sound of old songs and the smell of hot grease and spiced wine. It comes as a series of small shocks to recognise people here, out of their normal context. The woman from the Chemist’s is carrying a small child on her shoulders. The man who sits with his overweight dog on the bench opposite the church is here - without the dog but, if in compensation, accompanied by a younger woman - his daughter?

Looking around, I realise, on the eve my my long-wished-for escape, that this is my town and that these are my people and that, if only for this moment, I love them all.

There is something odd about this Advent Calendar which is hard to pin down until you realise that, despite some nods to Winter, it is not actually about Christmas at all.