Raindrops on kittens and whiskers on roses...

Day 157

I am struggling a little with the difference between how things are and how I would wish them to be. In truth, isn't that all we ever really struggle with - life either endowing us or restricting us in ways we don't like? My current bogeymen are insomnia and exhaustion, and an increasingly sneaky little devil called guilt. I have trouble with the reality of it being day 157, and I am no nearer my goals than when I started.

But -

I prefer not to dwell or wallow, even when I am as hormonal and off my stride as this week - negative thinking simply begets more. So, instead, I shall compile a positive things list, my 'raindrops on roses', if you will.

1. I love COLOUR. Love it. Favourites at the moment are duck-egg blue, and rich, coral pink. I love scarlet teemed with ice-blue the way they did in 50's diners. I like yellow but only if it comes as a rose or a baby chicken, not otherwise, but turquoise always makes me happy, and aubergine is wonderful.

Rosie has a teal velvet sofa - I swear it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. When I saw Mary Poppins as a five year old kid, I came away with a dazzled memory of Glynis Johns wearing lavender with buttercup frills. Wedgewood blue has coloured many of my dreams. When I read 'The thorn birds' I was captivated by the sound of Meggie's dress, the colour described as 'ashes of roses' - there is pure enchantment in a name like that.

I painted my last kitchen red with an olive green dining room leading into it. The inspiration was a funky seventies glass vase in olive that I found in a charity shop. The kitchen had black and white chequer board tiles which were wonderful with the deep red - it was all screamingly kitsch and fabulous. Made me smile every time I went in.

2. I love books. What else can you buy for under a tenner that has all the wisdom, knowledge and skill of a whole life? The great classics of literature are a feast for the soul. I love to be taken on a journey, far away from myself, to inhabit a different life or country or time, and then to come home again, enriched, moved, maybe even changed. No holiday does all that (at least mine don't).

3. I love the scent of newly bathed babies. People who believe in such things say you can tell when an angel has passed by from the lingering aroma of lilacs - I think babies smell like newness and wonder and softness and miracles. I love the clinging, unconscious grasp of their tiny hands, and the dough-ripe squish of their tummies.

I love watching toddlers having tantrums, fists balled up in fury, every ounce of them concentrating on having you HEAR THEM - NOW!!!!! They are so unafraid, so unaware of the odds stacked against them sizewise, not caring one jot for appropriateness of behaviour or niceness or any of that rubbish. They know their own worth, their indisputable place at the very centre of the universe. They will never be so free or brave or extraordinary again.

4. I love good food. I like having insatiable passions for things that I overindulge in for a while, then discover the next glorious thing. At the moment I could eat blueberries till I look like Verruca Salt. When I was pregnant with Joe all I wanted was brown bread and butter and radishes, and I still consider this a bit of a treat. There was also a time when my perfect lunch was cream crackers with philly cheese, a thin slice of pear and a mint leaf on top. Just great. I can chart my past with meals I have loved.

I like cooking with no set plan in mind, finding new ways to use up half a carrot, one onion, two mushrooms and a dollop of pesto. I like Mediterranean style food best, and am a sucker for anything fresh and juicy. I adore strawberries, mangoes, melons, cherries, and pineapple, as much for the smell as the taste.

Salads are my forte. I like a meal where everyone gathers and grazes, tearing off chunks of Pain Parisienne, and passing round bowls of gleaming olives, silk thin cured meats, jewel like cherry tomatoes, rich chutneys, and plenty of cheeses. Add a homemade quiche, a roasted pepper pasta salad, and a dipping bowl of glistening olive oil and ebony balsamic vinegar, and I'm in Heaven. (oooh making myself hungry now, time to move on).

5. Laughter. Best thing ever. Love doing it, love listening to it. Absolutely can't resist the SMA ad with the giggling babies on it. I get told off for laughing (very) out loud in shops when I'm choosing a greetings card and I've just got to the funny ones. I take no notice.

When we lived in a semi in Dorchester a few years ago, our lovely neighbour Mike told Steve that he really liked hearing my laugh through the wall - it was almost the only thing that penetated. At my birthday I was given a much treasured (but not attractive) picture of me laughing so hard coming back from bar in Berlin, that I was on my hands and knees on the pavement. Good times, baby, good times.

That will do for now - I am much cheered, and seeing my glass through it's proper perspective again. I feel maybe as Yeat did when he wrote with longing .....

I will arise and go now, and go to Innesfree
And a small cabin build there of clay and wattles made.
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone inthe bee-loud glade.

It is the small things that make our lives wonderful, that thread through our individual stories and tie us back to happiness. The very best things are free and juicy and fresh and loud and pink.

Champagne for Rosie, real pain for Barney

Day 114

Happy Birthday Rosie.

My step-daughter/lovely friend, Rosie, is 'thirty-something' today. She is as beautiful as today is from my window - the snow lawn is twinkling with diamond dust and the sunshine is a deep gold where it hits the trees. There is no wind, everthing is frozen in time as well as space, and a million animal footprints cover the clean, white ground.

Rosie had a rough time last year - she has been unlucky in love, which is always the pits. But there is a new man in her life now and a new spring in her step, so here's to you, darlin', I have a feeling that this will be your year.

Spent a fair whack of time yesterday digging two tracks out of the snow up the hill, so that the car could get out. Didn't really need to, but it made it passable for everyone else who doesn't have a four-wheel drive, although that's not so many round here. Plus, it was a good excuse to muck about in the snow whilst looking worthy.

Am obviously as unfit as I think I am, because I had to take pain-killers to get to sleep - my arms were so unused to that level of exercise. Does this bother me? Not much, actually, I'll deal with the fitness issue when I've got the exhaustion down a bit, or when the sun shines longer, whichever comes first.

I was three when we had the last really cold winter. We were living in a village high up in the quantocks, and we made a slide in the garden out of snow, which got icier, slidier, and faster each day. Brill. We didn't have central heating or any of that nonsense, and the ice patterns on the windows each morning were wondrous. I still believed in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, and now Jack Frost entered my world.

I remember having very cold hands all the time because gloves were always of the knitted variety, which became sodden and icy after only the third snowball. Wellies were padded out with two pairs of socks, which was never enough insulation, and scarves got in the way and so were often discarded. We would stay out long after our hands turned bright red and totally numb, only defrosting them in warm water when they had started to reach that interesting purple stage.

These days I am a total wimp. I don't like getting cold, it uses up my energy too quickly. But whether I get to make one or not, unless we get enough snow for a decent snowman, it doesn't feel like a proper winter to me. Last year we only had enough for me to make one for the squirrels, (who are fine and dandy, by the way, I saw two of them shagging in the maple yesterday). This winter is shaping up nicely.

The cat doesn't rate the snow, so she is leaving all the super-exposed, un-camouflaged prey to Barney, the cat next door, who is known as 'The Holy Terror' in these parts. He is the reason my Guinea Pigs do not get to roam in the garden unattended. I can see his prints all over the garden. However, he is jet black, and I am hoping this has slowed the success of his blood-lust down a smidge.

I tried to get a fire going yesterday, but the chimney smoked us all out of the room. At one point Steve had to open windows to stop our eyes streaming, so I shan't bother today as it rather defeated the object of the exercise. Will just enjoy it and wrap up in lots of blankets instead.