By: Blonde Two

So here we are at Boxing Day. I hope that you have all arrived safely, with the minimum of family dispute, the greenest of Brussel sprouts and an acceptable level of tummy swelling.

Obviously we will all soon be off for a refreshing (it will be) walk; and then come home for a little bit more family dispute, sprouts that are now less than green, and some left-over induced tummy swelling. I don’t know about you, but for this Blonde, the last week has been one full of, ‘I should be doing’ things. You know the sort of thing: ‘I should be peeling the vegetables’, ‘I should be wrapping presents’, ‘I should be preparing an exciting Christmas Eve treasure hunt’. I even had some Dartmoor-based ‘should be’ things. ‘I should be walking’, ‘I should be writing Dartmoor blog posts’, ‘I should be checking on The Dartmoor Christmas Tree’.

Being Blonde and through the medium of lists, I managed to meet nearly all of my ‘should be’ goals, even getting up to Tree twice in Christmas week. I will admit to you that I neglected to buy any crackers for the Christmas cheese, and that the Christmas turkey, when I got it out of the fridge had gone a bit green and smelly. But a Blonde is used to resorting to plans B, C, D and even X on expedition, and all of this was soon sorted (it is amazing what you can do with a chicken breast and a bit of pate!)

Is there a correct amount of pressure to put yourself under in these circumstances? Christmas, I have decided, is a lot like an expedition; months of planning and then over in the blink of an eye. One could be fed-up about this; but I have decided it is all about the memories. Somebody wise and lovely once said to me that life is made up solely of memories. Expeditions and Christmases all play their part in this melting pot of human experience … as does sitting on the sofa with a cold turkey sandwich!