Cards For Charity

Just at the moment it seems like unhappiness has attached itself like a ball to my ankle and is following me around wherever I go. So many dreadful things - teenagers killed in car accidents, young men blanking out and falling to their deaths down mountains, the diseases of people I know getting worse... My friend Irene says it is always like this at Christmas it is just that this year I am noticing it more.

I tried to get rid of it by going to buy my Christmas cards in my usual place - the Methodist Church in Chester - because they have a good selection and a large proportion of the money goes to charity. But it didn't work. The woman selling them there seemed very interested in some charity I'd never heard of - she told me in great detail about the suffering of children afflicted with some fatal condition for which there was no cure. She only stopped when she saw my face. Enough, enough, enough. I bought my packets of cards and made a swift departure. Now I have them at home and wonder how I am going to face writing them.