Thoughts on the 22nd December 2012.

Well, it turns out the world didn't end yesterday.

As it happens, I still don't understand why people thought it might end.  If I've understood it right, and I can't say I've ever given much thought to the Mayan calendar before, it was just the end of a period of time for them, like a bigger week, or month, or century.  So if they were still around, they would, I think, have been looking at people stockpiling tins of beans and thought they were rather odd, while looking forward to what the fourteenth baktun might bring.

But anyway, the world didn't end.  Which is nice, because it's my birthday today, and it'd be a shame to have missed that.

And it's three days before Christmas, the wrapping is done, the cake is iced, B has taken the children off to Sainsbury's to do the brussels sprouts and double cream shop (one of the perks of having a birthday so close to Christmas) and, to top it all, M, nineteen months on New Years' Eve, has finally taken to his feet and walked.

So I am feeling blessed.  Or lucky.  Or both.   And not unlike Lucy Mangan in today's Guardian (even down to the motor skills). 

So go and have a read, and after that have a wonderful Christmas, and a very happy New Year.

xx