Christmas Cheer?

 Saturday. 8.25 a.m. It's cold and frosty. I was out with my little mate, Alfie, just after  7.30. A frost on the grass and a large moon hovering in the chill sky. It was really large the other morning. I'm not sure of the name it gets at this time of year. I'll have to do a Google search. 

Done the Google search. It's called a Cold Moon. Boring really. It's because the weather gets colder. Not very original, then. 

So, we get more football coverage, due to England meeting France in the quarter-finals at the World Cup in Qatar at 7.00 this evening. No, I'm not interested, so won't be watching. There's far too much coverage, and it looks as if the whole country is totally obsessed with football. I know why, it's about money. Too much riding on it all, with adverting and sponsorship tied up with the sport. Going into Sainsbury's the other morning, it was shocking to see how many products are tied into it. They want you to make sure you have plenty of food to eat during the various games, particularly pizza, crisps, lager, and soft drinks such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi. It's not just in supermarkets, either. Turn on any of the commercial television stations, and the advertising connected to the World Cup is more or less at saturation point. If you want to avoid any form of advertising by watching catch-up, you can't avoid it as these forms of television viewing aren't free from commercial overkill. I suppose you can't blame the companies, because they're paid for by advertising, not just during programmes, but they have sponsorship wrapping around each programme, beginning and end and during the commercial breaks. 

10.40 a.m. I've been attempting to move my writing project forward. I think it's more of a serial instead of a novel, and it should be released in episodes, which is more or less how he began life. I wanted to create something, rather in the mould of a television soap, with multiple characters and storylines which interact with one another, but more likely weave in and out of a central storyline, which is how it's developing. 

I have taken Alfie out and have just got back indoors. It's cold enough for gloves and my Oddballs woolly hat (Oddballs being a company that sells clothing items, underwear, pyjamas, gloves and so on, and the profits go towards initially,  research for a cure for prostate cancer, but have also helped fund other cancer research for both men and women.) I wanted to walk around Oldbrook Green, although Alfie had other ideas and was determined to get home in the warm, but I had other ideas and insisted on our circular walk continuing. I had the idea to be thinking about how my writing project could move forward and come up with some sort of storyline which would introduce a new character who would be able to create some tension. So, I am using the method which Charles Dickens used, as he would walk for miles around London and this would be when he came up with storylines and characters. I can see that would be a good method and might suggest why so many of his novels are set in London. 

Sunday. 7.15 a.m. Did I say Christmas cheer in the title of this post? I can't say I'm particularly in any sort of mood for Christmas, particularly as today is the fourth anniversary of the passing of my lovely wife, Carol. She is sorely missed, and she was too young to die at 54. We had such a good life together and were always doing things together, laughing and visiting various places, going to National Trust properties, museums, theatres and many more places. Cancer is so cruel. More research needs to be done to find a cure for the various forms it takes. Far too many people have either died of cancer or not been diagnosed by the NHS due to the pandemic when the various cancer facilities were shut down. Totally crazy and not acceptable.