Do you keep a favourite wall calendar?  Do you keep an image from a favourite wall calendar?  Do you even buy a wall calendar?  Well, I do.

Each year late in December I peruse the newsagents and stationery stores for The One.  The wall calendar with good images and good size squares to write in.  The paper is also important, not too shiny otherwise the ink smudges, and not too thin otherwise the pages tear and have a tendency to flop forward.  I then have to resort to sticky tape to hold old months out of the way of a new month.  Sometimes I use glider clips (paper clips, metal things bent to slide over paper and hold it together) or if I don’t like the calendar much, I glue the old months together.

Occasionally it annoys me where the hole is punched in some wall calendars because it can affect the hanging process on my coat-hook (in the bedroom) the nail (in the kitchen) and the picture hanger (in the study) and enlarge the hole.

One of the calendar ‘things’ which has been a major item on our Christmas list for many, many years is a Bunch-Of-Dates.  A delightful play on words (perhaps conjured up by a light-hearted printer) it consists of a shaped metal frame which goes through the two holes in a square block of paper containing 365 day leaflets plus a tiny yearly calendar and national holiday dates.  An added bonus is daily quotations from inspiring people.

This pre-internet invention sits on office desks and when the workers begin their day, they flip over yesterday’s date to reveal all the chores they have to do today.  Every job I ever worked in from 1970s onward had Bunches-of-Dates sitting on staff desks or the reception desk.  Yes, I actually still use this old-fashioned device and it is right beside me on my left-hand side.  The date at the top (see photo) with lines at the bottom.  Yesterday, Sunday 5th January 2020, it had approximately seven things written on it, e.g. shopping for a light bulb and To Do things like fill bird bath with water.

You can buy the Bunch-Of-Dates refills for a couple of dollars (a range of office calendars and diaries are printed by Collins Debden) and every year after 1st January, they are renewed across the country.

If they are not used by lazy coworkers who try to remember things and when they can’t, they blame it on you for not reminding them, their blank Bunch-Of-Dates can be used as scrap paper for note-taking.  I sometimes find some thin old wire, like a twist-tie, which I thread through the holes and firmly bind 365 unused days together.  Just the right size for cryptic notes to colleagues or wayward family members.

Lately I have taken to keeping the last year’s used Bunch-Of-Dates (with exclamation marks, little drawings, council reminders) because sometimes I jot down an important number and don’t transfer it over to my Contacts file.  At this point, I must mention that I have an electronic calendar.  It is most ingenious but no matter how ingenious, it still needs input.  I am very sparing with what I type into my electronic calendar otherwise a lengthy tirade will pop-up at me in the morning when I least expect it.

Another thing; I never ever put stuff on my mobile phone.  Silly, I guess, but they need to be charged and friends say ‘my battery died’ whenever they are late.  An old-school piece of paper in your pocket will never let you down.  That, and a pen, is all you need to survive in the world of words.

But, you ask, what about keeping your favourite calendar photographs?  Goodness, I don’t know where to start!

I have many beautiful scenery images, all totally scribbled on the back, all years old.  But I love them and I often remember the month that went with them.  Except for the one I framed which is three elephants and their passengers splashing down a river in a jungle.  The shallow water is jade green, as vivid as the lush tropical foliage.  There is a feeling of both pleasure and menace.

Anyway, a person in my familia has taken a shine to Polish artist Jacek Yerka’s fantasy style and I began to enjoy the ones where he puts hundreds of bookstacks in quirky settings.  I kept this one (see above) perhaps not his strangest, but I get a lot of pleasure out of it.

Every so often I have a surplus calendar, a gift or whatever, so I hammer in an extra nail and hang it up, not as prominent as those I love but I give it hanging space.

And this year?  Oh joy, this year I discovered an Australian Jumbo Big Huge calendar with gigantic squares!  It will take anything I wish to write on it and leave room for more—the down side of this extravagant calendar is no pictures.  There is a tiny strip along the top showing a beach or mountain or city but nothing else.  And one of these images is repeated, not a good look in my eyes.  Ho-hum, can’t have everything.

In the kitchen my next favourite is Chickens, not cooked, just hens displaying glorious feathers in beautiful country settings.  Pecking through, it looks like April hens are ahead of the flock photogenically.  I will have to let you know who gets preserved at the end of the year.  Just a minute, I’ll write a note on my calendar…

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward