The Reward is the Journey

Each day is a new day.  Full of potential.  Today is one day. Tomorrow is another day. Tonight represents an opportunity to start over. Afresh.  Anew.  And press re-set. New Year's Eve looks rather different for me these days.  If all goes to plan, this evening will be much like many other evenings.  And at the same time quite different.  For no two nights are ever truly the same:  I am not the person I was yesterday evening, and I will not be the same person tomorrow, either.  We none of us will be. But, just for today, I don't intend to celebrate the dawn of the new year with a glass of anything.  Mine will likely be a mug of tea.  A favourite mug.  With fresh mint, most likely. For, these days, I don't even indulge in caffeine after dark. I did however have the most delicious Darjeeling Broken Orange Pekoe this afternoon. Sitting in the finest company, this sumptuous teatime treat was poured from a divine si...

I was lucky enough to be given a massage treatment for Christmas.   Just, exactly, what the would-be doctor would have ordered and what I should have self-prescribed some time ago. Self-care still takes practice. Earlier in the year, I had it down 'to a tee'.  I was taking time out before I needed to, and making the most of my wonderful masseur's fingers (and thumbs).   Somehow, in the midst of everything else, that seems to have become both heavier and even more fast paced, I let a few essential ingredients slip through my fingers, and 'into the ether'. Having my head and face gently yet expertly massaged was a great heads-up for self-care. It's back on my agenda (and already features in my gorgeous new 2014 diary), in a big way for I know I ignore it at my peril.  I'm far better at it than I was once, but when things are tough, I need to turn-it-up...  

Christmas 2013 came and went.  It was as good as it could be.  This year has been somewhat eventful for my family and I.   Illness has descended and taken us in its unflinching grips. It has hijacked the life of someone for whom I care deeply, progressively robbing it of so much of the pleasure and joy we used to share.   To say that I have been feeling angry is a gross understatement.  I am in battle with an invisible opponent who arrives at the least opportune moments consuming that which is most precious to us:  time.   Terminal illness is a sentence - not only for the individual diagnosed, but for those of us who are similarly tried and tested, watching and waiting, anticipating our wretched powerlessness. We got away as we had planned to.  We pulled out all the stops and made it happen.   But the illness came too...  The chronic condition is relentless and lacks any respect for the festive season. ...

My local cinema is something of a favourite haunt.  I have a membership.  I often take friends, and I'm not averse to going by myself.  Somehow, I never feel lonely at the movies.  2013 has, it seems, been another good year for films.  These have been my highlights...   Cirque du Soleil - Worlds Away 3D Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world. John-Luc Godard Silver Linings Playbook The Impossible Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theatre. Roman Polanski Hyde Park on Hudson Life of Pi 3D Juxtaposing a person with an environment that is boundless, collating him with a countless number of people passing by close to him and far away,  relating a person to the whole world, that is the meaning of cinema.   Andrei Tarkovsky Les Mis @ IMAX Arbitrage Side Effects Lebanese Rocket Society Place beyond the Pines Great Gatsby 3D The Heat Lovelac...

Every two minutes someone goes missing in the UK. Many families will feel incomplete this Christmas. The Carol Service on Monday evening was in honour of those who will not be at home this Christmas, and those who miss them.  To describe the event as moving would be a gross understatement. It was tremendously powerful, and evoked a wide range of emotions in me and, I imagine, everyone who attended.  The Revd. Katherine Hedderly who previously presided over the first Carol Service held a year ago did a fantastic job, inviting us to reflect on the issues that missing presents for those who are left behind welcoming those with faith, no faith or some faith to join together to remember families. Rock Choir set the scene.  'True Colours' spoke to the pain and anguish of those affected by the multiple issues that arise when someone disappears.  'Something Inside so Strong' was a testament to the resilience of those who find themselves in the awful limbo mis...

Birthdays are important.  Well this one certainly was... Today Charlotte celebrated her 34th birthday.   Yes, 34.  Somewhere in-between 30 and 35.   Thing is, life counts.  Years count.  Days count.  Moments count.  When you've been up against the alien.  And that's exactly what Charlotte's been busy doing.  Fighting the horrid alien that came into her life (and ours) at the beginning of 2012.   The last month has been hectic.  I hadn't realised exactly how hectic until it dawned on me that I hadn't seen my bestie in a few weeks.  This didn't feel OK.  Particularly when I was later to discover that Charlotte had had a scare.  A nasty scare.  In the shower at school. Thankfully, the angels at Kings did all they could to find out precisely what had swelled up.  To discover that it was not, in fact, the alien returning, or sending a cousin.  Surgery has side effects.  The bod...