Feng Shui and the Chain of Ponds

Learning to Play

Of course no one in the house could actually play the piano, so for months it sat quietly and rather awkwardly wedged under the staircase.

Sometime later I resolved that, after all these years, I would again start to learn the piano. A brief interrogation of the Yellow Pages revealed a music store en route to work from whence I purchased a shiny copy of Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course, with all the promise that held.

The Piano

I would say that learning piano is my new year's resolution, but in fact this decision significantly pre-dated that period.

As a youngster, I remember being packed off once a week to attend piano lessons with an ex-nun, in accordance with my Mother's wishes I develop some musical capability. Considering my sisters could play both piano and guitar, this was understandable.

However there was one small issue. I had a weekly arrangement to play at my best friends'  house after school on Fridays. He was a slightly built English boy, with fair hair and freckles, who I got along with very well. Unfortunately the aforementioned piano lessons clashed, something I pleaded with my mother to change. The "deal" was the status-quo would continue until the end of the term, when I could choose stop if so desired.

As fate would have it, circumstances changed and my friend's family had to moved back to England at the conclusion of term, I ended piano lessons anyway (in disgust probably) and that was largely the end of my music tuition. This was except for brief periods of informal study under the tuition of my sister in training as a piano teacher herself.

Many years and a change of continents later, my Wife's friend was clearing out her notoriously overrun house, and decided the old piano was surplus to her immediate requirements. We decided we would take it (every home needs a piano) so after payment of a small amount of cash to the owner and delivery arrangement, we were the proud owners of a slightly worse-for wear upright piano.

The Festive Season

So Christmas has come and gone for another year. And New Year's Eve has been allowed to slip by largely ignored, except lying in bed listening to the far off rumble of the fireworks.

Christmas lunch was shared with friends; we did the turkey and some chicken, one family brought a roast and a sensational baked Alaska pudding (yummm), the other a berry Pavlova (yummm) and a rich chocolate cake. Needless to say there was food in abundance with everyone leaving well satisfied.

I nevertheless have the usual suspicion that, even with shared responsibilities, the planning preparation, and frantic on-the-day activities end up with one wondering if Christmas lunch wouldn't be better off as a low-key famliy event? Maybe it's just me...

The Big Day!

So the big Day has finally arrived. Well, not big really; the lead-up has been rather more significant - slow and painstaking. Not that the day was an anti-climax, more the opportunity to effect decisions long-since made.

Arriving at the office early, I set about tranferring mails & files I needed to my e-mail address, followed by the cleansing ritual of deleting every other e-mail and file I'd taken so much care over the past year to neatly categorise and organise . By the time I'd finished, there was virtually no trace on my computer that I'd ever used it. What a freeing experience - purging my link with the Company in the course of half an hour at the computer.

Next was sending the "transfer" e-mail. As a consequence of the rapidly diminishing workload and similarly deflated level of care, the handover of responsibility had been non-existent. "I guess I should read over the meeting minutes you've been sending out", noted my rather unconcerned colleague. So the process was initiated and finalised with a e-mail to the usual distribution, briefly excusing myself and nominating my hapless colleague as recipient for future communication.

This was followed the "final good-bye" note. Brief, to the point, and devoid of dreary sentiment, I provided my contact details and wished all a merry Christmas. That done, I headed downstairs for a round of final farewells. Conveniently my visit coincided with the departmental year-end cake feast, so goodbyes were tempered with generous slices of double-chocolate cake.

Upstairs next for a brief demob session with HR, followed by a round of farwells with our rather diminished department. Then, finally, escorted to the exit and swiped out, a brief farewell from HR, then out into the carpark and on my way home.

The first sensation was a sense of relief that it was finally All Over. I was no longer part of the troubled organisation, no longer employed, did not have to return in January. My overwheming feeling was a sense of freedom and release.

A Warm Fire on a Chilly Evening

The eldest is lying diagonally across our over-size couch with Small cat nestled against the back of his thighs. Large Fluffy cat, a brown and black incarnation of Garfield, cuddles up against his stomach. I'm squeezed in near corner aganst the large rounded armrest, warming myself against the chill of a drizzly late afternoon, while my Spouse is stretched out on the coir mat soaking up the radiance in front of the fire.

The rotten deck that once graced the north side of the house has been carefully deconstructed, part loaded into the walk-in skip (along with carpets from the old quarter of the house) with the remainder power-sawed into convenient heater-sized strips. Now, numerous tubs of neatly packed firewood rest outside ready for chilly evenings like this. Reduce, reuse recycle! 

It's a Christmas-Light Street

Even before the house auction commenced, we were told by the parents of our Youngest's friend (who lives a few houses up) that the street had a lively community spirit and that it enthusiastically participated in Christmas light displays that were the envy of the district. So even before we'd cast a bid for the house we were feeling the pressure!

Now, a few months later in the thick of Christmas preparations, we're enjoying that spirit of community along with an excitement about Christmas we haven't experienced in years. The creative neighbours have produced a remarkable stock of beautiful cartoon characters up for grabs by street residents, who display them in their front gardens adorned with fairy lights. This is an absolute kids paradise, generating lively discussion amongst the youngsters on who's getting which characters this year, followed by afternoons of fun-filled activity choreographing  the characters and lighting displays. Our front garden is now filled with penguins, icicles, trains and myriad twinkling lights.

The street, having a built a reputation for it's delightful Christmas displays, is visited every evening by a handfull of cars slowly easing their way up and down the road, stopping every now and then to savour the more colourful displays for a little longer. The occasional couple also make a detour on their evening walk to visit or street to enjoy the innocent delight of lights sparkling  on front lawns in the cool calm of the evening.