John and I  have been married fifteen years ago today. It has made me feel a little reflective.

Once upon a time I flew to Hanoi.

One minute I was watching TV in Edinburgh, and the next I was sharing  a house north of Halong Bay with my Vietnamese colleagues.  I had made a conscious decision to resign from my job and seek another on the other side of the world.

Changes, decisions, career paths, crossroads, Robert Frost and his road less travelled; we all have choices to make and then live with those choices. No one really knows what the outcome will be, and sometimes we don’t know that we need to get out of the comfort zone until life gives us a push. My son is a plasterer, and has developed chronic contact dermatitis from working with cement. It is time – he has been given the necessary push to change. But to do what, and where? Maybe he should be like Voltaire and cultivate a garden. I heard of a lonely lady who went to be a housekeeper to the minister of the Church of Scotland on the Hebridean island of Eigg. Her life turned round as in time they married and she went on to have children in her mid-forties and suddenly she was a treasured member of the community.

Today I remember our wedding on a crisp cold day in Edinburgh, my daughters and I wearing traditional Vietnamese ao dais, and drinking champagne overlooking the city roofs and steeples.

I look around our house and see the happy relics of Ukraine, Asia and the Middle East, and today I am wearing the cashmere jumper that we bought in Ulan Bator in Outer Mongolia.

We have travelled, walked and cycled  and I have written four books with John as my clever editor and mentor. I have quilts, a new skill learnt from international ladies in Doha, and best of all we have the grandchildren and all our combined family of grown up children.

My latest quilted picture

Christmas is coming and so are the families. We are relishing this time of relative peace before the onslaught of ‘Play with me!’ but would not miss it for the world.

A visit to my mum first, and Christmas cards and greetings to friends old and new.

Never a Christmas Greeting or when an old year ends,

But someone thinks of someone – old times, old things, old friends.

So farewell for now, warm wishes to you, wherever you are celebrating this year.

Happy Christmas and a have a wonderful New Year.

P.S. That last paragraph makes me sound like the Queen! HA HA!!