Shropshire Star

Peter Rhodes with yuletide reflections on the long, hot summer of 2018

An old friend came to the house a few days ago bearing a photograph.

Published
Swallows and Amazons for pensioners

"That was the best day, wasn't it?" he said, wistfully.

By chance, a few days earlier I had been sorting out my images of 2018 and chose exactly the same picture.

It was taken on Loch Lomond on May 15 and captures the start of that long, long summer of 2018.

Our two old boats are dragged up on the white-sand beach of the island of Inchmurrin.

The stove is roaring away, the bacon is sizzling. All is exceedingly well with the world.

This was Swallows and Amazons for pensioners, proving as the Rat put it in The Wind in the Willows: "Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."

We messed about for a week in unbroken sunshine, fearing we'd have to pay for this glorious spring with a wretched summer.

In fact, there was hardly a chilly day again until October.

And then suddenly here we are again on the other side of the solstice.

Another Christmas Eve. The magic of sunshine is replaced by the magic of frosts and crumpets and port and goodwill.

It's a time to reflect on a year of joy and sorrow.

In 2018 we lost three good friends, plus our dear old cat who was just as happy fighting with a boat's rigging in high summer or "helping" with the Christmas decorations in midwinter. Nothing helps with a boxful of baubles quite like a 6.5 kilogram tabby.

If we ever replace him he will be a hard act to follow.

Our holidays took us to Devon, Dorset and Rutland. I'll never forget the steam train to Swanage or that strange encounter with a family of black swans living wild on the River Exe at Topsham.

This was the year of remembrance.

On the 100th anniversary of the November 11 Armistice, Mrs Rhodes and I rose at 4.30am and went down to Warwick where at dawn a piper played a lament for the fallen of the Great War.

As a nation, this year we did the lads of 1914-18 proud.

But now even a fanatical old battlefield-walker and studier of regimental histories like me thinks maybe it's time to ease off a bit and look forward rather than back, if only because the years go so quickly and it's wrong to spend too long on any single subject.

And, goodness, how quickly.

Our daughter is 32 which means it is 26 years since we had our Particularly Significant Discussion about Santa.

She was six and we were decorating the sitting room with a riot of tinsel, bells and streamers.

"So do you still believe in Father Christmas?" I asked her. She drew close, conspiratorially.

"No, I don't," she whispered. "But I think Mummy does."

The nights shorten and, before you know it, the warm, long-lighted, messing-about days will come again.

Have a very merry Christmas.