Setting off down the drive to our farm for the first time last year.
December never used to be a brilliant month for me, cold, damp, windy, muddy, frosty, crowds of people clogging the supermarkets and shops, no money to buy the things I really wanted to buy for the people I loved.
I left my first husband just after Christmas in 2002 after 24 years of marriage. The realisation that he had changed into a man I didn't know was heart-breaking. I spent two years building a life for me and my younger son (he was 15 at the time). He went on to Sixth Form and University and made me SO proud. He was there during two years of transition, we had fun together and we both turned our lives around.
At the end of this period I met and fell head over heels in love with my darling LH, we moved in together at Christmas a year later and we got engaged at Christmas the next year and then married on 4th December two years ago.
Last year for the very first time we drove onto this farm for a viewing just before Christmas and we spent the whole of Christmas organising our move and camping at one house or the other. So now I see December as a glorious end to each year, always with the promise of a fresh year to follow with more adventures and more to learn about our lives and each other.
My son is away again at University doing a Masters Degree (proud Mum once again) and will be home for a couple of weeks at Christmas, we have family birthdays to look forward to, but first we have an anniversary to celebrate. And yes, I brave the shops now, listen to the cheesy, lovely Christmas songs blaring away on the speakers, patiently wait with my basket of shopping while the people in front with their three trolleys of mostly unnecessary food argue and bicker over who they have not got presents for yet and their children wail and screech over what they want and what their friends have.
But now I do it patiently for the best Christmas present I ever got will be with me always, and his love makes December the best month of the year, truly OUR month, closely followed by January, February, March, April....oh you get the picture!!
Wishing each and every one of my lovely readers a wonderful December, enjoy the build up to Christmas, but remember always the ones you love and put them first, not the size of your turkey or the amount of food you can fit in your supermarket trolley!!
Oh and in February next year we will be getting our very own turkeys to grow slowly and happily here on our farm for next Christmas.
Normal farming chit chat will resume tomorrow.
Sue xx
