Solstice

Light returns. In around twenty four hours from now the Winter Solstice will be exact. Each year I greet its arrival with relief; it may get colder but it won't get darker. This day is the focal point of the holiday for me since my belief system is linked to the rhythms of the natural world - I find it impossible to separate one from the other.

The temperature has been hovering below zero for almost a week, a bitter, damp, Dickensian cold penetrating every single item of clothing and shriveling the bones. On the way home from a holly-and-mistletoe gathering expedition late last Sunday afternoon I strike up a conversation with an elderly angler hunkered down on the riverbank and swathed in a parka. I ask if the river has ever frozen over.

"The last time would be in 1963," he says. "There's been nothing since".

We watch the water flow past, deep and swift after the recent rains, darkening in the fading light.

****

G arrives this weekend to stay for a few days.

We're friends who go back fifteen or so years to when we lived in the same block of flats in West London. We met on the stairs and just hit it off. It was a time of radical upheaval for me and in her company I found that trips to the local arthouse cinema and mugs of Earl Grey tea on a winter afternoon could be effective antidotes to the churning going on inside my head. She left London a few years later and we've stayed in touch.

Walks are on the agenda. DVDs, reading and Scrabble if it's raining really hard.

****

A year ago yesterday I viewed the house I now live in for the first time. Immediately after Christmas I travelled back across country for a second visit. There was a third in early January, followed by the survey. A couple of weeks after that I put in an offer which was accepted. Taking stock twelve months later I can list the following: a reasonably congenial (temporary) job that leaves me time to have a life; health; a home; a garden; a cat; a bicycle; a nucleus of new people to get to know; and enough money in the bank for a while anyway.

Good - if uncertain and precarious - times. I know I'm lucky. And for the future maybe I can simply do the next thing in front of me and then leave the outcome in the hands of Dharma or the Universe or whatever name you want to give it. Maybe that's all I've ever been asked to do.

I hope the next few days are peaceful and grounded ones for you, filled with kindness. While I participate in this addictive, creative exercise called blogging for myself, it wouldn't be the same without your silent presence on the other side of the screen. Whether you're a regular or not, whether you leave a comment or not, I'm very glad you're there.

Merry Christmas.



The western sky really was this colour last Sunday for about one minute. I just happened to have my camera ....