Bereavement, and a Christmas goose (not for eating).
It was a Christmas I'd been dreading - the Christmas of 2013, and my first one without David. I refused to acknowledge it. I bought no tree, put up no decorations, and sent only the obligatory minimum of cards. I wanted to go nowhere, and do nothing. However, my daughter, Jude, put a tough, daughterly boot in, and booked me a rail ticket from Paddington to Truro (she lives in Falmouth). Neither of us were to know that I'd be travelling on the day of the Great Storm, and that, when she picked me up at Truro station (the train was delayed by two hours, and was the last one to get into Cornwall that night) we would face the most white-knuckle drive of our lives! Those five days of Christmas went unexpectedly well. I re-acquainted myself with her amazing puppet of Borka the goose, from John Burningham's classic picture...