Christmas Day at their house, as promised by Elva and Laurie, was very restful. Elva's decorations, like this poinsettia on the table, are simply done and very beautiful. While our turkey finished roasting, we walked up the hill, followed a homemade trail through the woods —neighbours' feet having trodden the snow down—then came back indoors to enjoy our meal. The dining room made a nice, warm contrast to the screened deck the other side of the patio doors, on which cane furniture was stacked, snow drifting around its feet, as in that scene from the famous film where Dr Zhivago and Lara break into his old summer house in mid winter.
Boxing Day today, and the outside world's transformed by freezing rain. Even ordinary things like the washing line in my garden become extraordinary.
Most of the day I've been playing with the gadget Chris gave me for Christmas which converts old fashioned slides and negatives on strips of film into digital photographs. We moved house so often in the old days that any storage system I once had has disappeared and the negatives have become inextricably shuffled, so that at one moment I pull out pictures of us in the Netherlands, in 1979, then at the next dip into the pile we're suddenly in Hertfordshire in 1987, or Wales, 1993, never mind the holiday destinations. All those different worlds, all the different people we used to be! The once ordered past has turned into a proper muddle, but it doesn't seem to matter.
The pictures below were taken in Apeldoorn, Shoreham-by-Sea, and Welwyn Garden City, in 1979, 1985 and 1987 (or so).
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