It's Beginning To Feel A Bit Like Christmas

The work projects are in their closing stages, the Christmas tree is up AND I’ve actually wrapped presents and put them underneath the tree, so to misquote a song title, it’s beginning to feel a bit like Christmas.

I walked along my local beach earlier and the pohutukawas are looking beautiful. There are some photos of them sprinkled through this post. They bloom in December and so are known as New Zealand’s Christmas tree.  The cliffs at the end of the beach are ablaze with them at the moment.

Christmas in the southern hemisphere takes some getting used to if all you’ve known is northern hemisphere snowy celebrations.  At the moment all the windows and doors are open, and it’s still hot.

I do feel sorry for the shopping mall Santa's.  They’re dressed in warm red robes while the rest of us are in shorts and t-shirts.  Hearing/singing  traditional Christmas songs about the cold and snow also seems a little out of place.

We are approaching the longest day of the year, and the children have just started the long summer holidays. This means that Christmas and New Year holidays tend to stretch well into January in New Zealand, as families head off to the beach for holidays. Turkey and ham are Christmas favourites, but so also are family BBQs at the beach.

I’ll put my hand up for some extra reading time during the holidays.  I’ve been doing some serious work on the Leaning Tower of Pisa that is my ‘to be read’ pile, and that’s just the overflow from the bookshelves. My Kindle is also bursting, though fortunately no-one but me knows that!

It’s a year since I first published Lives Interrupted, and as it’s a present-giving time of year, Lives Interrupted is free to download on Amazon on 20 and 21 December  - Amazon UK. 

If you don't have an eReader, but are getting one for Christmas it will also be free on 26 and 27 December. 

Happy holidays and happy reading.