Last leaves clinging on

The shortest day of the year is on Friday so I am very pleased we are nearly half way through the dark days of winter! I walked Xena this morning and managed to distribute some of my Christmas gifts too. 

I am not sending Christmas cards this year but I did create a card with family photos (it was actually a bit of a faff) which I have emailed individually to some people, those who we do not see regularly, and I have made a donation to Crisis at Christmas which hopefully means that some homeless person or two will get to enjoy a warm dinner on Christmas day and a warm bed for the night, and support going forward. I feel bad saying that I am not sending cards but rather donating money to a charity as, lets be honest, there is some element of not wanting the faff of sending cards involved in that decision, and every time we receive a Christmas card I feel guilty. So I may reverse that decision next year, send cards and donate to a charity.

I realised today that I love the run up to Christmas, the twinkling lights everywhere, the carol services, the beautifully decorated stores, the anticipation of Christmas coming - but then on the actual day I always a feel a bit flat as it is over for another year. 

Yesterday when I got out the car I was carrying my bag and my camera (in its camera bag) and the way I was holding both in my one hand caused such a sudden shooting pain in my sore elbow, that I dropped both. My camera did not fall very far on to the ground, but the lens filter attached to it shattered and we could not get it off. Today Gavin kindly took my lens to Fixation and they managed to remove the shattered filter from the lens for no charge, and said that the lens was not damaged - whew!