New Year, 1 January 2025

A new year to everyone.

This is the fourth of these and by now the form is established: a table, quieter than it used to be, with people who are present and an awareness of those who are not. No fireworks. Home by curfew.

What I noticed last night is that the evening has stopped being an adaptation and become simply how it is done now. That is what happens after three years, and it is not a comfortable thing to observe.

So I will wish the ordinary thing and mean it exactly: a year in which fewer people are missing from the table than last year, and one after that in which fewer still.

A good year to your house, and to everyone at it.