I just wanted to write and thank you most sincerely for pledging to support No One Talks About This Stuff. Thank you. Not least for getting this book that bit closer to being funded, but because I got a positive lat flow test on Saturday and have basically spent the days since in my pyjamas watching Shaun the Sheep on Netflix rather than spreading news about it. 

But! A Christmas miracle! While I've been working my way through the seven dwarves of Covid symptoms (today's entry is 'Wheezing'), you have been pledging and talking about the book online. Thank you, thank you, thank you! And because of you, we are ending the first week of crowdfunding at a frankly wonderful 30% funded. 

This email might not be the most coherent thing I've ever written. To be honest, my brain feels like porridge with a robin living in it. I suspect yours might too: so I wanted to give you some jolly things to cheer up this mixed-up time.​

• 7 Christmas treats (literally nobody needs seven swans a-swimming)

Christmas can be a bloody tricky time, even without Covid and especially if you're going through infertility, health problems, miscarriage, or grief. If you're feeling less than 100% festive right now, then here are some funny, relaxing things to read, watch, and listen to that require no brain power whatsoever:

1. Furious pets in Christmas jumpers 
2. Robin Robin (Netflix)
3. The Comic Relief Christmas pantomimes (BBC iPlayer)
4. Farmageddon (Prime)
5. The Penny Dreadfuls: The Brothers Faversham (Audible)
6. Nina Stibbe on her most memorable Christmas
7. 'All I Want For Christmas is You' but just the Alto 2 part

 

• A poem of hope

A friend on Instagram shared this beautiful poem by Susan Cooper with me last night for the winter solstice and I had to share it with you. 

The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us — listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.

When discussing this book with Unbound, one of the images I had was of a support meeting, where you listen to the similarities and not the differences of someone's experience. There is so much common ground in feeling, and in having that feeling being heard and acknowledged. If you are "in the trenches of infertility" as a friend put it earlier, or struggling to find a place for joy at this time of year, please know that you are not alone, however much it might feel like it.Whatever you are doing this Christmas, whether with Good King Covid (ugh!) or otherwise, I hope that you have good company and conversation.

If you need a little of either, please come and chat to me. I'm on Instagram @katbrownwrites and Twitter @katbrown.

Wishing you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year. If we don't get one, I'm asking for our money back. 

Love from Kat (and Sybil etc) xx