This week has confirmed how quickly this year has travelled. Is time travelling faster? It would seem that in this week I have received comments from people of different ages expressing surprise that December is here, and saying how fast this year has travelled.
What is making us experience this, school children who have expressed it, seem to have experienced the last term of the year slipping past them with assessment tasks and exams. But the three terms before it, they perceive as having vanished quickly as well. Parents of children who are going to school are also astounded at how quickly they feel the long holiday has arrived again.
For me the start of the year contained hope, and the end of the year is containing a loss of hope. This is the saddest year I think that I have had in my life in some ways for it is ending in an opposite from the past. Most years I can still have hope of improvement for those things that are struggles in life, but this year the largest one, seems to contain less hope and more despair. I really would like things to be different.
After that, you would think that I had a dreadful week, and yet there were two wonderful highlights to the week. On Thursday evening I wound up having a trip to a bookshop for their preChristmas discount sale to help me to buy Christmas presents. No presents bought, but a collection of interesting books. Wonderful to be greeted with a glass of champagne and then some finger food. We could only stay for a short time for we had to head to a medical appointment.
Then on Friday the real fantastic highlight of the week. Following a frustrating car trip into town, and made because the train trip of the Saturday prior had lost my faith in the railway system being able to get us there on time. Well the traffic contained some idiotic drivers who did some very strange things, twice we were fortunate that cars that swerved into our lane did not collect us. Mind you the one intersection provided a hold up that was ridiculous, and only caused by people going into an intersection when there was not room on the other side, so our road could not turn where it needed to as it was blocked. Fortunately we had left really early so as to allow for unexpected roadworks or situations like this. Lesson learned. We parked and then went to the theatre, and in the cafe/bar had a glass of Champagne as a means of waiting for the start of the show.
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was fantastic. With Geoffrey Rush as pseudolus and Magda Szabanski and Shane Bourne, there was a totally booked out theatre. My husband bought the tickets early so we were four rows back from the stage at the aisle. It was fantastic, they performed really really well. Geoffrey Rush has such an expressive face, and such a way in using his arms, hands and legs, and such a wonderful voice, that all night there was a smile on my face. The whole comedy is such stupid fun and the production team helped in their choreography, stage and costume design, and in the energy the whole cast showed. The audience did not really start laughing well till the second half, although some had been laughing all the way through, but in the second half it was loudly laughing. We laughed and laughed, and my memory is revisiting scenes such as the eunichs, Senex at the bathroom window, pseudolus viewing the ladies, the three Phyllia's, the funeral scene, and....... The singing was wonderful, the acting great fun, and we left with a warm glow. What astounded me is that after such a wonderful night, the majority of the faces of people leaving did not have smiles on them. Memories from my childhood were that of audiences generally leaving the theatre smiling. However some were smiling. I wonder if this tendency to frown is reflective of a society that has lost contentment with what we have, but striving for something we do not have (and do not really need.) I wish we could remember how lucky and rich we are, even the poorest in the country.
Another week has finished in this year, and I wish all well for the next week.
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