Count your blessings and share

Saturday 2nd January, 2021

Saturday is the one day of the week when we get a newspaper. It is for the Crossword and for the television and radio supplement. It costs £2.80p which I find extortionate for other peoples' opinions yet very inexpensive considering the paper used, the volume of writing and the supplements and photographs etc. As ever on my return from Church via the newsagent I sat and read.

I agreed with the articles which expressed my opinions and disagreed with the rest. As ever I was surprised at all the reported incompetences and disagreements at political level. Ms Sturgeon under attack for overplaying the Independence card and not concentrating on Covid and vaccinations. The Prime Minister and the Education Minister again criticised for vacillating and dithering and making promises and not fulfilling them. Then the appeal to unite even if Brexit is not to one's liking. Comments on Trump and the hand over of the Presidency and on it rumbled. One remarkable story about a wine producing firm in the Lebanon....how they have within the most appalling circumstances of war and political tensions and business shenanigans still produced a vintage this last year. There are, I underlined to myself, amazing, courageous, determined and positive people in all places and situations. The human spirit can be indomitable.

I did particularly take it on board an article telling how the journalist had followed and engaged with the ragers, those who look for people and ideas and actions which cause them to explode, get angry and troll against the perpetrators. She was finally aware that she was getting angry with those getting angry and that the anger and rage achieved nothing and was ultimately harmful to equanimity and sanity. As I rage, often against litter bugs, I took note.

I walked with my constant companion the litter grabber. It was again a glorious day, a clear blue sky, a low sun and yet also freezing. Two lakes I passed had frozen over and the paths through the park were treacherous. I fell on one of them as I carelessly greeted some neighbours. It was good to get the clean sharp air in to my head. It was good to note the silence and the sentinel trees as well as the noise of small waterfalls and a few birds and see the roosting herons. I picked three bags of litter and had one conversation over it.

I arrived back at 3.15pm. I had had a lovely lunch of hummus and olives as well as a large slice of Christmas cake. So I took a new book, got under my duvet and read and slept and felt warm. I have just had an email telling me snow has hit some neighbours about thirty miles away....I await. I burrow down further in my bed.

One thing I particularly like about snow apart from the clean look it gives to the landscape is the silence, the muffling it causes on any noise. One feels so much more cosy if one is at home and warm. Yet I do think of the homeless and say a short prayer for them and one of thanksgiving. My Grand Mother's mantra comes back: "Count your blessings and share them".