Crimbo Time

Last Christmas we were striking and the whole thing was very stressful, so in comparison this year has been a breeze; cards and parcels have been delivered on time, there is no backlog in the office and the mood has been pretty positive. The manager informed us that our office had successfully handled over 66,000 tracked packets this December. That's a lot of packets. But look how tidy and organised my cage is. I have done lots of overtime, to keep things running smoothly and to help everyone else do their jobs. I tend to feel quite ambivalent this time of year, I do it because it matters to people, but I am mostly glad when it's all over. 

My favourite job in December is making sure people's Christmas cards get where they are supposed to go, so I spend time every day with a pile of badly addressed cards finding their intended destination.

Our home made Crimbo tree is still going strong since 2016. It gives me joy not to add to our carbon footprint to have some glittery decoration.

I am not sure how much I have read this year ... so lets see ...
Must I Go by Yiyun Li
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Long Live the Post Horn by Vigdis Hjorth
Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi
Otherlands by Thomas Halliday
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
A Tidy Ending by Joanna Cannon
If Cats Disappeared from the World by Genki Kawamura
Forget Me Not by Sophie Pavelle
Chorus by Rebecca Kauffman
The Last Resort by Jan Carson
The Reservoir Tapes by John Mcgregor
Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry
A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ni Ghriofa
How to be Human by Paula Cocozza
The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li
Various Poetry
A Brief History of Everyone who ever Lived by Adam Rutherford
My Friend Anne Frank by Hannah Pick-Goslar
Elena Knows by Claudia Pineiro
Resistance by Anita Shreve
Hard by a Great Forest by Leo Vardiashvili
Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura
Wild Things by Laura Kay
A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
The Hero of this Book by Elizabeth McCracken
Quilt by Nicholas Royle
A Widow for One Year by John Irving
The Zoo of the New
The Power by Naomi Alderman
The Future by Naomi Alderman

That is not a lot of books ... but you know what, I don't beat myself up about how I have spent that last year. I am not sure that I have a favourite from this year's reading, lots of things I enjoyed but nothing stands out for me looking down the list. 

Wishing regular readers and random visitors Merry Christmas.