Grumble, grumble, gringe

I know I'm really just a cantankerous old curmudgeon, but I will be glad to have everything get back to normal.  It's not that I don't enjoy Christmas.  Far from it, but my Christmas celebrations span just two days, Christmas Day itself and Boxing Day.  I'm happy enough to accept New Year's Day as a public holiday, but to my mind every day between Boxing Day and New Year's Day - and that includes New Year's Eve - is just another, ordinary day, a working day even.  This probably stems from back when I started work, over half a century ago, in a bank.  We had our two days for Christmas, but then it was back to work with a vengeance.  And 31st December was the worst of those post-Christmas, pre-New Year days.  31st December was (whisper it in the cloisters) Balance Day.  On balance day, everything had to be balanced and double-checked.  This meant that work which would normally be held over until the following morning - like posting the ledgers - had to be completed that evening.  Meanwhile, the tills were balanced and the manager checked the cash in each till.  Then the ledgers had to be balanced.  This involved listing every customer's name and balance, totaling them and seeing that the total agreed with the control.  If it didn't, find out where the mistakes were and correcting them.  And remember, there was no computerisation - all this had to be done by hand, even down to listing customers' balances on enormous sheets of paper.  There were a few adding machines but not enough for everybody. Oh, and ball-point pens were not permitted; "proper" ink only.  When, and only when, everything balanced and we knew how much profit the branch had made that year, we were at liberty.  If we were lucky, it might be as early as 9.30 but 10.00 or 10.30 was much more likely.  Given that we had started work at 9.00am - or even earlier - and had been permitted just our usual one hour lunch break, we were knackered and had no thought of going out celebrating.  Granted, things were much easier after computers were introduced but by then we were a family of four or five and late evenings were very much a no-no.

Things changed subtly after I left the bank and started work as general manager of a small, specialist newspaper company.  We published weekly - and there was almost certain to be an issue due between Christmas and New Year.  Not that I had anything to do with the actual writing or production of the paper, but distribution was one of my responsibilities and the advertisement department was also answerable to me.  No, my main concern was that our financial year end was - you've guessed it - 31st December.  Ours was a small business and I could see no good reason why it should be several months before our accounts were completed and audited (the accounts were my prime responsibility), so I had arranged that the auditors would arrive on 2nd January to start their work.  This meant that I and my two accounts girls had to work pretty fast to get everything up straight, all shipshape and Bristol fashion.

Although it is over ten years since I retired, I still have that mental outlook.  Those days between Boxing Day and New Year's Day are not holidays.  On the contrary, they are some of the busiest days of the year.  Or should be.

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Way back in 2006 I produced the first calendar featuring my own photographs.  (Actually, it was in 2005 that I had it printed for 2006.)  This was the picture for January.