The morning walk with the dogs is taking on a different character now. It’s the bank holiday and the last one before Christmas. It was a delightful time of year as a retailer, but that’s all behind us now.

Christmas is all about family, so “they” tell us, which reminded me that we didn’t share our Christmas from 2020. The Raybould family (my Mother’s side) has become closer as we get older, helped enormously by a biennial meeting, not helped by Covid which cancelled the last one. Death has cast a shadow too, but again Covid stopped us meeting up.

Substituting a Facebook and WhatsApp group has kept us in touch, and enhanced our chatter, reinforcing our view that we like spending time together, indeed the more we do so the better we enjoy it keeping our memories of parents alive. At the same time, our successors have a family and a structure that they can cherish.

So this was a virtual catch-up in response to a request for a photo which sums up your Christmas Day. The sort of people we miss spending time with.