Thursday 31st December

 Tackling another year. Or not - as Murr says here.  For we can start anywhere really on tackling life anew, it is just needing the courage to do so.  Making plans that never come to fruition is what we are good at and then the promised land never quite looks as we had imagined it.  We should live in the moment taking pleasure when that shaft of joy strikes the soul.  Count them during the day, for me early evening yesterday.  The full moon spied through the black branches of a tree.  I know exactly where to find it and it gives me reassurance.  Looking down on a small scatter of wet leaves in the garden and then seeing the sycamore seeds shooting up, and the chuckle that is always inside me, grinning at the thought of a 100 years hence and should these tiny seedlings make it to maturity, that there would be a fully fledged  wood growing through this carpet of pebbles and what would have happened to the cottage I wonder?

We are blown by the winds of misfortune, or fortune don't forget, optimism is not a bad feeling to carry round.  We are in the midst of this latest drama, but it will pass and then something else will come along to fill the space left empty.  

Nature is a wonderful companion in all this, one might call her contrary in her whims.  We can beat ourselves for the fact that humankind created the latest tragedy but at least we take notice of our foolishness and try to make amends.  It is whether the forces of good overcome the bad, and whether there is really a paradise to reach?

Lucy is sleeping soundly, I think she is fading away gently, wobbly on her feet, determined to refuse any proper dog food, the latest craze for her is porridge, and then there is of course pancakes which she always loved.

So to a Different New Year and may we all find the things we seek in the months to come.  Peace and contentment to you all. xxx

And a poem echoing down through time, because where would we be without words!

"Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light:

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

For those that here we see no more;

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace."

―Alfred, Lord Tennyson