Flashbacks kill Christmas!

According to modern tradition, the Monday of this week is 'Blue' Monday.  It's supposed to be when all sorts of negative forces coincide, such as the weather; the realisation of how hard Christmas has hit our credit cards, versus how little funds there are to pay off the debt; the recent failures to keep New Year resolutions, and so on.

In the very simple life of my retirement, the way it plays out is this.  I'm on the brink of finishing up all the excessive amounts of stuff that I bought up before Christmas.  Many years ago, it used to be a treat for a poor family to have a chicken for Christmas dinner, but I live on chicken in one form or another several times a week.  Instead of chicken these days, there is turkey or goose for Christmas; and the shops are full of all manner of tasty treats and sweetmeats that only appear at this season.

My mind goes back to years soon after I'd left home.  Many a mother finds this problem as the children go their own ways in life: you're still cooking meals for four or more when there's only the two of you.  Well, in this instance, my mother still got a large Christmas cake (I don't think she made her own ... although in the earlier years she might have), even though she could only eat a little bit because of her diet.  It became a regular occurrence in February or March to be offered a slice of Christmas cake when paying a duty visit on a Sunday afternoon!

It's very difficult - and often quite a bit more expensive - when living alone, to buy just sufficient of everything to provide exactly for the feast days and no more.  So I've cleared up all the special food items from the holiday, and now have to revert to normal living: oat 'nobblies' in the biscuit barrel instead of the box of chocolate assortment on the shelf and lemon drizzle slices instead of stollen bites in the cake box.

My normal pattern at breakfast is to put jam on my toast one morning and marmalade the next - I know, I'm very fortunate that I have this choice!  Maybe the bright sunshine this morning confused me, but it wasn't until the marmalade was on the toast that I remembered I'd had marmalade yesterday.  My reaction to this catastrophe was benign, 'well, never mind, there can be jam tomorrow'.  It was no big deal.

Another memory from childhood came to mind.  It was summer and, as often happened on a sunny day, blankets had been stretched over the various structures in our small garden to provide a 'play house', where I could play in the warm fresh air and still be out of the direct sunlight.  It was such a nice afternoon that mum had brought me my tea in the garden.  I took one bite of the sandwich ... and set up such an almighty tantrum that I can still remember it over sixty years later!  For whatever reason, I had expected jam in the sandwich; instead, as a special treat, mum had filled it with baked apple, which she knew I liked.  My love for the apple was superceded by the surprise that it wasn't the jam I'd expected, and I let fly.

Goodness knows what the neighbours thought ... let alone my poor mother!  But, having drifted so far from Christmas into mid-summer, I think it's time I stopped drivelling until next week.