I’ve left my mutterings too late tonight. However, I can make a start. What I won’t finish tonight, I will tomorrow. It’s been a full day for a natural snail like me. November can be dark. The mornings certainly are and I am feeling psychological unwell these mornings. I have to give myself an extra push and a talk. I tell myself it is the shortness of days and the darkness of the mornings that are colouring my mood. Once I get moving I will feel better. Sometimes my mood does get the better of me.

I work extra hard getting up in the dark of winter. There’s no light or sun to welcome me. I get up because it’s time. I get up to turn on the light and the warmth. And so it is the afternoon of the next day. I had to work no less hard this morning, rising and pushing back the dark. It’s a win once I’m up. There’s the morning rituals everyone has of brushing teeth and splashing water on your face. Then fill the kettle for tea and a breakfast of toast and grape jelly.

It’s Saturday. I got my swim morning back. Thank God that it’s not taken away again by rising Covid numbers. We don’t realize the value of things till they’re taken from us. I’m grateful to have this time to reflect on things small and large. Sometimes it is the smallest that matter the most. I love my winter Saturday mornings. I don’t quite love it the night before or the morning of. It always feel so difficult getting there in the cold and in the dark. But it is the after-swim-feel that I remember. It truly feels blissful. My body is warm, relaxed and so at ease.

It is this bliss that I work toward in all that I do. Sometimes I have to work through the difficult to get there. Knowing that makes it less difficult. Maybe the bliss comes from the difficulty of it. I try to do at least one difficult thing a day. Putting things away is in that category. I try to rinse my swim suit, goggles and cap as soon as I get home. It’s so easy for me to drop my bag in the kitchen and leave it till whenever. I waste so much time drinking tea and thinking about how hard everything is. I’m turning over another leaf till I fall off the wagon again.

Talking about tea, I feel the urge for another cup. Be back in a sec. Sometimes a tea break is not a bad thing. I put away the dried dishes waiting for the kettle to boil. I’ve done my hard tasks already. I can falter and stumble a little. I had my walk right after I did the lunch dishes. No dallying with a cuppa. No matter how grey the day, I always feel better instantly when I walk outside. The world seem to expand and I also. It works so I do the walk, even if it is just a short one.

Now the day and this post are done. Tomorrow is another day. Nothing much happening in the greenhouse. Yesterday with the sun the afternoon temperature got up to 22 degrees Celsius. Today was mostly cloudy with a bit of weak sun. I got up to maybe 12 C. Not all days are equal.