Happy New Year, everyone!

I don’t know about you, but I’m quite glad to see the back of 2013. The year — particularly the latter half of it — was a pretty trying one Chez Bsag. Quite apart from having some difficult things to deal with, it was definitely the Year When Things Broke. An extraordinary number of things broke, failed or ceased to function, from our central heating boiler, kettle and espresso machine, to me having to have my wedding ring cut off my finger. Just when we thought there was perhaps nothing left to break in 2013, our phone and internet connection went dead on Christmas morning. Thieves breaking in to the supermarket opposite apparently cut a major telecoms cable while trying to disable the alarm. We may be disconnected for a while, as they have to dig up the pavement to fix it. We’re currently having to ration our mobile data allowance so that we can still get email and so on now and again. Still, given that so many people had a miserable Christmas without power of any sort over Christmas, or had their home damaged by storms or flooded, we got away very lightly.

I want to end on a more positive note. As I mentioned above, I had to have my wedding ring cut off in the summer after getting bitten on the finger by a horse fly, which resulted in my finger swelling up so much that the ring was cutting off the circulation. We were so preoccupied with other things that we haven’t yet had time to take the ring to the jeweler to get it repaired. I found that I really missed wearing it. It may just be a symbol, but just as when Mr. Bsag lost his wedding ring, sometimes you find that symbols matter more than you suspected.

I visited my parents for a few days after Christmas, and my Mum lent me my granny’s wedding ring to wear as a temporary replacement. It did actually feature in our wedding, as I wore it secreted about my person as my ‘something old’. It’s a very simple, thin, gold band, and a touch on the large side, which surprised me. I had no idea that Granny had even thicker, more Hobbity fingers than me, but I’m secretly rather pleased to know that she did, and that I evidently come from a long line of Hobbit women. Unfortunately, the ring does not make me invisible when I put it on my finger, but on the positive side, I do not have to go on a long and dangerous journey to throw it into a volcano, so, swings and roundabouts… I find that I really like having a wedding ring on my finger again, even a borrowed one.

I hope that 2013 treated you well, and that 2014 will be better.