I AM not quite sure how December got here so quickly. It’s Christmas again and usually I tend to get a bit humbuggy about the whole thing, but I think this year we all need a bit of light in our lives — and I didn’t complain at all when fairy lights started to appear at the beginning of November. It was nice. Perhaps I’m mellowing out.

A Facebook friend of mine, Jeffrey, keeps posting these wonderful images of Christmas how it used to look. He’s this lovely elderly chap, who keeps me entertained with his fantastic pictures of old buses and historical Pembrokeshire.

Now, as Christmas approaches, he’s filling my newsfeed with all sorts of images that I haven’t seen for a very long time. Old Christmas images that have been lost for what seems like forever. There are pictures I remember from my grandad’s house, old Christmas cards, the ones you got in the packet every year.

Jeffrey always writes a lovely little caption and always includes the words “happy”, “nostalgic”, “memories”, “carefree” and he makes me feel like the last 40 years didn’t happen and that I’m still hanging out in my grandad’s garden at his red-brick council house, while uncle Donny meticulously arranges marigolds and pelargoniums in neat rows, colour-coded and millimetre perfect.

It’s nice to look back on those memories and let yourself feel the feelings they evoke, but it also can leave me with this strange melancholy. Those times are gone.