Sprout peelings

Look, I'm here, really I am. I'm sorry this blog is updated rather intermittently. I don't forget my readers, both of you. It's just that the creative block called Christmas has gone now, and I keep having to work hard in the lair. I went into the garden yesterday just to take some leaves from outside the kitchen door to the far end, and blow me if there weren't some sprout peelings looking lovely and glistening in the morning sun! So I had to go and get the camera; a woman's work is never done.

And then later that day was a lovely evening light: 'Light in winter', a phrase that once sustained me through some grief. I saw it on the spine of an old book in St. Deiniol's library. I didn't get it off the shelf; I didn't need to, the phrase was enough and reading the book might have broken the spell. Well, we all have our excuses for being poorly read, and that's mine. The phrase didn't suggest that there was hope, rather it suggested that one could live in a kind of winter of the soul and there could still be good stuff to sustain one within that situation. And somehow, I just can't read a load of stuff, I have to give up thinking of myself as an 'avid reader'; or else perhaps I'm just an avid reader of a very little. A few phrases are more than all I need, they jump out at me; too many and I'd be overloaded. I go to bed with picture books.

And then just now I settled down in my kitchen chair for a nap - I was late working last night - and what did I see but this dishcloth pilgrim marching across the windowsill! It must be a sign, I tell 'ee!

But I have a list of blog topics just howling at me to be set down. Titles waiting to be brought to fruition include: 'Omni-this and that' and 'Splish splosh, neatness, Stanley Spencer' and 'New light shed'. Do I write this for you, dear reader? Well, partly! But mainly I write it for myself - I think I must be my most avid reader! Then sights like this are only a click-of-Clothq away. We have this kind of sky quite a lot in Lincolnshire, and this pic is not souped-up in any way; my pics usually are not, and I would tell you if it were. It's for bedtime reading, provided by God.

Light in Winter