I Quote Charles Dickens

 As I've gone about my Christmas busyness, I've been listening to David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. One of the things I've done in 2022 is subscribe to what, in the 1980s, my granny (her vision deteriorating) would have called a talking book service. Subscribing has been one of the small, but significant, things I've done in 2022. 

Other small things I've done have included my 80th parkrun, decorating a pottery bowl, growing potatoes, onions and sage, drinking wine in a summer house after dark, buying curtains, and making my first nut roast.

There have been bigger things too - of course there have been.  I held my great-nephew, 3rd newcomer to his generation, for the first time; I followed in the steps of Leopold Bloom around Dublin; I became a part-time employee; I scattered ashes of one of my dearest friends; I attended the first graduation ceremony for a while. 

I was drawn to listening to David Copperfield because I first listened to Demon Copperhead  (Barbara Kingsolver) - her book's plot follows that of Dickens'. Even with extra time to myself these days, I would not have finished reading either book in print, but have enjoyed having them read to me while I go for walks, do housework, dig. I will forever associate my attic with Moby Dick, the book that accompanied my DIY insulation improvements in the spring. The timbers have something of the ship about them.

Like this blog, Dickens writes David Copperfield in the first person. The comparison goes no further than that, except, perhaps, in one respect. Today, when I heard David Copperfield musing that "trifles make the sum of life" I thought, Yes, that's right. The break ups, the bereavements, the awful news of wars and sorrows ... as well as the joys of new discoveries, the triumphs - all of these are huge monuments in our lives: the dates of birth and death which mark out years as unique. But in-between, every day of every year, it's the small stuff --  what seems trifling at the time --  that holds us (that holds me) together.

Tomorrow is new year's day and I'm lucky enough to be spending it with family, including the very youngest ones. I was reminded, thirty-one and a bit hours into David Copperfield, of one small event that tends to happen each new year in our family. Thus it is, dear reader, that I go into 2023 hopeful that, among the contributions to the spread of food on 1st January 2023, there'll be trifle.