Dilys opened her freezer to discover a bottle of vodka in the top drawer. When she opened the fridge door she did not recognise any of the contents, oat milk, tubs of strange coloured dips and cans of drinks she had never heard of. ‘So This Is Christmas’ she hummed to herself. Well, she wanted to be taken out of her comfort zone.

She opened the back door to check on the weather and was alarmed to see clouds of smoke. Stepping out she was overwhelmed with memories of the little sweet shop.

‘Is it okay if we vape out here Aunty Dill, don’t want to do it indoors and have the little ones see us.’

‘Oh um yes, so that’s what vaping is, I didn’t think it would smell so sickly, I mean sweet.’

‘Different flavours.’

For years Dilys and Joan never saw any family at Christmas, or any other time. The nephews and nieces had their own busy lives to get on with and apparently assumed the two sisters were happy going to church on Christmas morning and having Mr Baxter next door round for lunch. But they were not church goers and Mr Baxter would leave the usual tin of Quality Street for them and fly off somewhere exotic till it was all over. Dilys much preferred Roses chocolates.

When Joan died, leaving Dilys the only survivor of that generation, the families of her late brothers suddenly became aware of her existence and decided she must not be alone at Christmas. They assured her that having three generations to stay in the big house would be no trouble as they would bring all the supplies and do the cooking.

After what happened with Gerald, Joan had insisted she return to the family home they had been brought up in. Joan had stayed on in the house after the death of their parents, the home left solely to her as she had cared for them. It had only been for a few weeks as father had died unexpectedly and mother suddenly deteriorated. Presumably they also left Joan the house as Dilys and her older brothers were all settled in life; they could not have predicted what would happen with Gerald. Dilys had intended it only to be a temporary stay, but there was plenty of room in the large family house and she never worked out how to earn enough to get her own place. There had been a plan B to go travelling, but that never materialised.

With Joan gone she realised she now had the independence she had sought for so long. Dilys quickly established a new community for herself, new friends and interests. Most women seemed to end up on their own at this age, it didn’t matter how they got there. New friends and acquaintances were uninterested in her past and if they did enquire, her enigmatic references made what happened with Gerald sound far more interesting than it actually had been.

There were now things to do and places to go other than the dreaded evenings of Bridge Joan insisted on. Once back indoors Dilys found she was not lonely as she explored the internet on the new home computer the silver surfers class had helped her install.

The young relatives had bought her an iPad and iPhone for Christmas and installed some aps, whatever they were. She was nervous about using the iThingy, but if she got stuck, Mr. Baxter or the silver surfers would help her. Dilys was determined to advance into the future with her new independent self and prove Joan wrong that all this modern stuff was not for them.

Her family seemed to include cooks, computer experts and DIY whizzes so her home was getting a lot of improvements. She had taken a deep breath and tried to laugh it off when she trod on Lego, not cringe when the antique dining table suffered various spillages and not worry as unrinsed beer cans and worse were tossed into her recycling bin.

A couple of days after Christmas Dilys ventured into the living room where her nice new television, installed by that friendly chap from the family run business in the high street, had taken on a life of its own. Dilys could work the remote, switch it on and off, change the few channels she watched and even record programmes. But it seemed the television was a computer gone mad. The older children asked her questions like ‘Have you got Netflix, where’s your Amazon firestick?’ She had no idea what they were talking about. Now there was no one in the room and the television was blaring out advertisements followed by frightening cartoon characters who loomed out of the screen. Tentatively she turned the set off and settled down to do her crossword. Suddenly a toddler came hurtling into the room, stopped in surprise then screamed out ‘Mummy, Mummy, Mr. Bobbly Bod’s gone.’

The house was no longer her own, when did they say they were all going? She crept up to her bedroom, the only sanctuary she had and searched for her tablets and library book. Her once calm pretty room was now stashed with all manner of things that had been rescued from the toddler.

Dinner that night was delicious, a dish she could never have made herself, though it was hard to relax and enjoy it with the toddler throwing food on the floor and a baby squishing food all round its face and all over the high chair, baby led weaning this was called. Of her many regrets at what happened with Gerald, never having children was not one of them. The presence of the little ones and stroppy pre-teens confirmed this. She looked around the crowded dining room. Her mother had always loved filling this big room with family and visitors and would have known exactly who was who. Dilys could identify her nephew and niece, but their partners were different to the original ones she and Joan had met. She was confused as to which babies belonged to who. One great niece had a wife, but who gave birth to the baby with whose egg and who the father was, no one seemed to know.

A great nephew was having his turn with the children for Christmas, but they had to be whisked off to the airport tomorrow and returned to their mother in New York. The way they behaved, she imagined this would be a great relief.

Dilys was too tired to contribute much to the conversation, they were all absorbed in discussions about new kitchens, Veganuary and child care. She smiled to herself. What tales she would have to tell the ‘gals’ at their next coffee morning and post Christmas debriefing. As she mused on the past, present and future of her family she detected a change in topic.

‘Yes we might as well stay on till New Year’s day at least, then we could all go out on New Year’s Eve, Aunty Dill won’t mind babysitting.’