A quiet, solitary NY Eve after time across town with the grandboys this afternoon – they’re getting ready to go for a few days in Florida tomorrow with their godmother Holly. Lucky! It’s not raining and not cold, but the sun is elusive. I’m drinking tea poured from a pot covered with Auntie Do’s tea cosy that I found recently, taking me back to many, many cups of British tea with my relatives, always with a cosy. Always with the pot warmed beforehand with a swish of boiling water.

Although coffee is my drink, all I wanted after giving birth to my children was a cup of tea. Tea means familiarity, women, home, comfort. Tannin.

Anyway, thinking about the year 2024 – I had to write things down to keep track because I no longer remember what I’ve seen, done, read. It’s all a blur. So here’s the tally, more or less: I read 28 books, saw 37 films at home or at the cinema, went to 14 plays, 9 concerts, 5 art exhibitions, 2 talks, and one dance performance. And saw a lot of television.

Favourites: some wonderful documentaries, including The Last Repair Shop, The Giants, and the one about the Supreme Court of Canada’s Rosalie Abella. Films, too many to mention, but especially National Theatre Live’s Nye, A Real Pain, and Perfect Days, the last truly haunting.

One huge treat this year was the stuff I saw or read with Eli and Ben, like The Wild Robot film and several great books including The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers, and our current one, Impossible Creatures, by Katharine Rundell.

Other books: again, nearly impossible to choose. Followed by the Lark, Helen Humphreys. The Creative Act, Rick Rubin.

TV: Somebody Somewhere, Ken Burns’s doc about Da Vinci, and Slow Horses.

Theatre: Salesman in China, and Big Stuff.

Art: Mark Rothko at the Fondation Vuitton, the exhibition of a lifetime.

Concert: Downchild Blues Band.

Such a wealth! As I’ve said over and over, art is what keeps us alive. I’m reading a piece in an October New Yorker about survivalists, stockpiling a year’s worth of water, food, medicine, and weapons in case of civil war or climate apocalypse; the idea is to kill anyone who comes near. As if life will be worth living isolated in a bunker surrounded by corpses. Lunatics.

I have to say, in review, that although it was such an appalling year for the planet, it was not a bad year for me, professionally and personally. I’m still alive and healthy, that’s good, with just a few aches and pains (and a brand new throbbing cold sore). Not bad for 74, if I say so myself, and I will have to say so myself since no-one else is going to say it.

On the down side, I have been resisting going into my office and starting the new book. Instead, I pull up old iterations, another of the many starts I’ve made through the years. I read it and then go downstairs for a snack. Not a good way to get ahead. Time’s a’wastin’! Carol just pointed out that the first quarter of the new century is upon us. Already. How did that happen?

I have no profound words for tonight. Here are some miscellaneous photos instead, things that just popped up or were on my desktop:

1. A bookmark made by Mum’s oldest sister Margaret, of lace she made herself, laboriously and patiently, despite her severe arthritis. I just sent this pic and the tea cosy knitted by Do to Margaret’s two daughters, my only cousins who live near Washington D.C. and are despairing Democrats. Right now, is there any other kind?
2. Chris who lives on Gabriola Island ordered my book in October and it just arrived today. Best friends since 1975. Love is.
3. This popped up on FB – they love to yank you back. The boys in the Stratford Museum a few years ago. Eli is now nearly as tall as I am.
4. Macca. Of course.
5. A meme that made me laugh because true.
6. My garden a few years ago. It’s not as manicured in recent summers. But one day, all that colour will return. I have faith that it will. I have faith that somehow our world will get through the time of great darkness that awaits. Let us take care of each other.

And don’t miss this hilarious video of a comedian making fun of the English language. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrJv_wUEKko

Happy New Year! Have some sham-pag-na! Despite all, my friends, may 2025 be a healthy, creative, fulfilling year for you all.