Today's choice is an old photo. Which I am setting alongside this one which is just a few days old...

The hat is the same in each photo, but they are separated by almost eight years.

It is a 'thing' that I now see every new Christmas as a very precious gift, something I would not have dared dream of eight years ago.  In those eight years I have made so many friends that otherwise I'd never have met - together we have laughed and loved and lost.

Each year, at some point I take a moment to reflect, just before the full-on festive fun begins. To remember how terrified I once was.  To recall the names of (far too many) absent friends. To realise how fortunate I am.

Advent/Christmas as a gift of remembrance... seems somehow right to me.