Winter

I drove into Lincoln last night through the familiar mist of 'mizzle' (mist/drizzle) which for me characterises the onset of winter. Walking around Bailgate, with its shiny pavements reflecting the diminishing moonlight I thought of how, in a few short weeks, it will be thronged with expectant visitors to the annual Christmas market.
The consumerfest is upon us and I am mercifully grateful that I stand a chance of avoiding it this year due to absence. No doubt I will feel also the pangs of homesickness but it won't be for longing to be at another Christmas day's overindulgence and ruinous spending on unneccessary items of clothing or gadgets. I have pretty much disposed of everything given to me last Christmas, it being a reminder of an experience I wish to forget, or if not erase, relegate to a part of my unconscious along with crowded supermarkets and indigestion.
Humbug? Not really, there were good Christmases too, but I genuinely dislike the commercial and quasi-religious hipocrisy that breaks out once a year and renders even the sensible mawkishly insane and financially foolish. So no presents from me this year dear, I'm buying myself a big escape package and if I can be located chanting Jai Guru Deva Om on some remote hillside in Poona, so much the better.
But I wish everyone else a good winter and that the festive season isn't too much of a disappointment to you all.