MOSS

No point making a quirky thumbnail of this one.

My heart sank today when the first Christmas card arrived through the post, complete with long and incredibly detailed four-page round-robin letter from someone who shared my office for a couple of months about 40 years ago when he was on work experience and who has sent cards every year since. However, when I got to the end of it - after nearly abandoning the effort - there was the bad news that all that detail had been delaying, that his wife is terminally ill and having palliative care, and an apology to all their friends for the early card but they're doing them while they can, and didn't want to intrude with bad news any later into people's festivities. It's terribly sad. I've only met them once in all the intervening time but I remember him as a jolly young man lacking in cynicism and full of enthusiasm for everything and she seems to be a soulmate for him. I know they have no children. It's a lesson for me about making assumptions.