Friday 7th January
Day 261
Today is the day to strip Christmas from the house. I sweep the mantlepieces that my sister decorated so beautifully with sprays of yew and ivy, bay laurel and holly. I stand on the two-step ladder and unhook the strings of cards and fairy lights draped over the mirrors. The red candles and sparkly baubles go back into their boxes. The white linen table cloth with its red wine stain like a pale purple hand, is in a carrier bag waiting to go to the laundry. All the radiators sport damp pillow cases, duvet covers and guest towels. Making clear space for 2011.
The fridge is echoey empty but I root around and find enough to make an olipadreida lunch of sweet potatoes, spring onions, carrots and sprouts stretched with a tin of sweetcorn from the store cupboard - all spiced up with garlic, ginger and a spoonful of curry paste. We eat it at the table in the cold kitchen with left over basmati rice from the freezer. We don’t have much to say and watch a fine misty rain fall on the garden and the patio pots still full of slimey dead geraniums and sticky fuschia bushes.
I feel the dankness of January wrapping itself like a clammy ghost around my bones.
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