The Longest Journey Begins With The First Step.........

The last four days have been pretty much as you would expect of late January, soggy and dark mostly, with the odd shaft of winter sun accompanied by squally winds bringing intermittent showers. I don't think I know anyone who likes this time of year when we all huddle indoors trying to work out how we are going to pay all the bills whilst hoping that the post won't bring yet more as it inevitably does. I am a firm believer though in the ying and yang of life and in order to enjoy the high points there have to be low ones. So when these cold, damp, miserable, worrying days descend it's nice to dream about the up side of life, of holidays to look forward to, and barbecue recipes to try, of summer days out and lazy days in the garden. All in all I'm pretty lucky though at the moment as I have a great diversion to distract me from all the gloom without having to day dream. This diversion comes in the plumptious shape of my newly acquired granddaughter. Each time I see her she has a new ability to show me, tiny advances to the uninitiated but huge strides to me so that her eleven weeks on the planet seem to have been filled with new accomplishments. I am of course outrageously biased but that's only because she is the loveliest and cleverest eleven week old I've ever met. So despite the gloomy weather and the Arctic financial climate I remain nauseatingly content with the world.