Holiday - Vacation!

Tomorrow we are going away. This year, we will celebrate Christmas in Fuerteventura, Spain. We have been looking forward to this for months, going to visit the Sun in the middle of the longest, deepest, darkest winter months.

I will not be blogging during our time away, but I will certainly post some holiday snaps when I return. We will be walking on sand dunes, lie by the pool and read, eat hearty and healthy meals at the hotel restaurant. I have a Mary Russell&Sherlock Holmes-mystery on the Iriver, a Hashim the Eunuch-mystery in a library book, and Mr Kindle, well, I think I will leave him at home. We will even bring a few films with us.

I suppose I´m not that keen on Christmas anyway. What I like is to spend time with nice, happy people, eat good food, read and rest. Add work to that equation and you pretty much have what I want all the time. The truth is that for many, women in particular, Christmas is the most stressful time of year. There was a long article in today´s paper about how important the BRIS (Children´s Rights in Society) support telephone lines are for children during the holidays, when so many parents with alcohol and drug problems and rocky marriages make their children´s holiday a nightmare rather than a celebration. I wonder if the pain of the distressed isn´t deeper during Christmas because you´re supposed to be so happy. It´s like this mega worship of Quaint Family Happiness blessed by visits from Coca-Cola Santa, rather than, what was it now? something to do with a baby star, and three wise guys? Whatever.

No seriously, I do always try to do some somber reflecting these last days of the year, try to balance the books, so to speak, and form some kind of idea of what I want from the new year. Not exactly resolutions, not any more, but a few questions perhaps, a few focusing sentences that I can return to during the year, to renew my awareness of what I´m doing and what I want to have going on. For this next year, I have indications there is change in the air, work-wise. I´m not keen on it, but not afraid of it either. Unlike so many, I have margins and options.

But for now, it´s all about getting away from it all.