I woke up at just after 6.00am and wondered whether to get up or to stay in bed. Actually just a few minutes more in bed proved to be the best part of an hour so I got up a bit later than intended. The evening before, I treated myself to the last of the Alice Robert’s programmes how the human species gradually came to inhabit the globe and the routes that they may have taken. This last programme looked at the arrival of homo sapiens in the Americas and we know from the fossil evidence that what is now Canada might have been the first point of entry. But a mystery prevails because at the time when the fossil evidence indicates, approximately 13,000 years BC, the continent was covered by a massive ice sheet. But then a land bridge may have developed allowing (in archaeological terms) a brief period of time in which early modern humans could have entered the Americas and then progressed along the coast all the length of the Americas, eventually ending up in Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America. But even this is a contended history because gradually other bits of evidence are accumulating which together with some statistical modelling suggests that the earliest inhabitants might have arrived in the Americas by sea some 30,000 years ago. Both the science and the archaeological evidence are evolving and, of course, there is an enormous amount of conjecture involved. The evidence is not just fossil evidence but several branches of science converging. A recent Oxford University study has put forward the conjecture that when the timeline for humans was compared with dates obtained for extinct animals, the analysis showed human expansion, during this warmer period, happened at broadly the same time as their disappearance. The team suggests an increase in human population seems to be linked to a significant impact on the catastrophic decline of these large megafauna. No doubt, these debates will continue for many years yet to come and what has to be remembered is both the shape of the continents so many millennia ago as well as the prevailing climate change. So we are left with the two rival explanations of the arrival of the first early humans from Eurasia, the dominant one being a route through a land bride along coastal shores some 13,000 years ago and the new rival explanation seems to be arrival by sea some 30,000 years ago. The two approaches are not exactly incompatible with each other, because it could be that the arrival of humans some 30,000 years ago represents a failed colonisation with no trace in the genetic or the fossil record.
Now returning to modern times, preparations for Christmas seem to be well underway as one can see Christmas decorations starting to appear in houses along our streets. My domestic help turned up and she really loves putting up and decorating Christmas trees! So we had to move some of our hall furniture and then got the tree erected and decorated with its lights but the baubles can come a bit later. So now I can get somewhat into the Christmas spirit. I decided not to go to Tai Chi this morning so that I could assist our domestic help with Christmas decorations. Christmas without Meg is always going to be a bit of a ‘bitter-sweet’ affair this year but life, as they say, is for the living although, almost inevitably, one thinks of family, friends and acquaintances who are no longer with us. Although I had missed my Tai Chi session, I still hoped that could coincide with my ex-banker friend so I raced along and managed to catch him at the end of the class – we indulged ourselves with coffee, chocolate cake and stories about our respective mothers-in-law. So I was glad to have this little chat so called in to collect my newspaper and when I got back home, our domestic help was still there. Now the Christmas tree was all hung with its appropriate baubles and some tasteful bits of decoration put around the hall. Some days ago and thinking ahead to our party on Sunday, I had ordered some ‘mistletoe by post’ and, as it happens, it is grown an a local farm in Worcestershire where it is cultivated on old apple trees. So now the main decorations were put up I took the opportunity to put some strategic sprigs of mistletoe to hang from our lights in both the hall and the Music Lounge. The UK tradition of kissing under the mistletoe is thought to have started in the 1700s, but it became much more popular throughout the 1800s. The Victorians especially became big fans of kissing under the plant – and it’s stuck ever since! The reason there isn’t one clear explanation why we kiss underneath mistletoe is because the plant has been linked to many stories and traditions over hundreds of years, and different people see it in different ways. One of the more common meanings is that mistletoe is seen as a symbol of fertility and life – and that this could be why we kiss underneath it. There are four more bits of Christmassy things to be done but I think they are best done in the daylight. We have a total of three cribs (Nativity scenes) one of them made in balsa wood in Indonesia, another which looks like a traditional German design and the third is much more tasteful rendition of the nativity scene Meg and I spotted in Chester Cathedral shop and immediately fell into love with it. When lit in a particular way, it looks as though the Nativity scene is set under a palm tree (which is where in the Koran, Mary is represented as giving birth) Finally I have a small fibre optic Christmas tree which adorns a corner pf our Main Lounge and which we have had for decades now but the fibre optic lights coming from the ends of the ‘leaves’ constantly change colour so it is quite a fascinating little object. I always used to dash around putting the least amount of decoration up on the grounds that you less you put up, the easier it is to clear away but in view of our party and the fact my son and daughter-in-law are spending Christmas with me, I thought I would make a little more effort this year. I am not sure how many Christmas celebrations will be evident this year as one of our friends has moved away, another is having an operation whilst our immediate neighbours may well still be away in India on holiday.