Whoosh!

And in the blink of an eye, September melted into December and here we are, confronted by another Christmas and end of year rush when the memory of clearing up after last Christmas is still fresh.

Funny, I can't remember what I was doing last Tuesday but packing away the seasonal decor, always an awful chore, resonates like a pulsing headache.

Why are we always surprised when the year end creeps up on us?  Honestly, December happens with singular regularity.  Every year.  On cue.  Yet every one a coconut, we greet the month with exclamations of how the year has flown, it can't be Christmas again and we generally behave like ostriches who've pulled their heads out of the sandpit and are totally amazed by what they see.

Nah.  I think every month slips past as quickly but the point of difference is the immutableness (yes, I made that word up) of the 25th December.  And summer holiday bookings have fixed dates.  So if the 5th August is just a day gone by with the usual frustrations of not getting everything done, things slide over to the 6th. Or 16th.  Or maybe even September.

But Christmas Day stubbornly refuses to move out to a more convenient time slot. And those annual business and school shut down dates stick to their guns - their time, not yours.   

Adding to the overcrowded diary is the sudden inrush of invitations and commitments as the whole world realises that days are min and the year is on the final approach to ending.  So 365 days worth of social, school, business and celebratory invitations are crunched into about 35 days.  Commitment overload of the best, and worst, kind.

Minutes, days, weeks and months flow by like the Zambezi River approaching the Kariba Dam wall.  Increasingly funneled towards the inevitable end point, the water smacks the wall and is literally stopped in it's tracks.

And so it is with our year as it reaches December.

Wishing you all strength, patience and fortitude over the next four weeks.  You'll need it!