Thursday 20 December 2007

AS TINY TIM OBSERVED...

Well, folks, this is my penultimate blog for 2007. Over the past 19 months, I've blogged 628 out of 653 days, as well as 231 posts on my Window Gazing blog, 24 Likely Stories, and 20 essays and snippets on my Ex Libris blog, not to mention helping my little rabbit pal upload 44 posts to his Buttons' Blog.

However -- and, yes, yes, I know I've said all this before! -- when blogging resumes in 2008, it is likely to be an occasional, rather than a daily, offering. The combination of finding material for a new blog every 24 hours combined with a total absence of any work in the foreseeable future means that, in the New Year, I really have to focus my attention on trying to write for money...

Still, may I thank you all for reading and commenting on my blog and I hope we'll continue our conversations - albeit a little less frequently - for a while to come.

Having spent most evenings during the past few weeks listening to the words of Charles Dickens, I thought I'd end this almost-Christmas blog with some lines from the closing paragraphs of his still-magical A Christmas Carol, describing Ebenezer Scrooge after his various reforming encounters with the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future...
Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.

Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset... His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him

...And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!

And so, as Tiny Tim observed...

God bless Us, Every One!


And that's almost all for now - except that tomorrow there'll be a little Christmas present for you all!

Image: Greg Hale, © 2007

5 comments:

Boll Weavil said...

I will be gutted when your blogs become less frequent because I always have my brekkie in the morning reading them.Nice to see a bit of CC to end on though. Who is that bloke in the photo with you btw ? He looks really unwell...

Suzanne said...

Well I think I've said this before Brian - I'll miss your daily blog! So here's wishing you a very "Joyeux Noël" and all the rest.

Brian Sibley said...

BOLL & SUZANNE - It's OK... It';s not 'Good-bye' (at least, not yet!) and who knows what 2008 may bring..

BOLL - As for 'the bloke in photo': he was like to die; but now that Scrooge has become a second father to him, he will get well and live! (Not sure about the puppet though!)

Elliot Cowan said...

You're looking very pale, Brian...
That's you on the left, yes?...

Brian Sibley said...

Maybe I need a tonic, Elliot. That fat fellow on the right seems in pretty good health...