Between then and now

Dawn and the elm outside my window 

Almost catatonic from the Downton Abbey two series set, I donated a box of Milk Tray to my son, knowing he'd eat it in a sitting and save me.
This was after the first detox dream in which I am trying to pack shelfloads of dictionaries and encyclopaedias into two suitcases so I can catch a bus to the Eurostar. I miss it and cry. I am sensible enough to discard the make-your-own paper suitcase that I'd bought for emergencies.
Generally I am awake before dawn and amazed at how relaxed I feel again, post-lodger. It was a financial experiment and the results were conclusive - for the five out of seven days when I am mostly at home, I do not want to deal with a stranger's neuroses.
I heard someone on the radio exhort the value of reasons to be cheerful. Ian Dury made a song of them:


"A bit of grin and bear it, a bit of come and share it
You're welcome, we can spare it - yellow socks
Too short to be haughty, too nutty to be naughty
Going on 40 - no electric shocks" (Ian Dury, Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3, 1979)

Today's reasons to be cheerful: a Russian Christmas tonight with summer pudding made of vodka soaked raspberries, another year's MOT, walks with Roxy, Giya's wall of pics, Mrisi singing in the cellar, a notebook and pen, la Fontasse, Italian kale on the allotment, a line of parsley, the three Janes, Maude, Julie, Catherine, Hilary, new brogues (a present from my mother), Smokey Robinson, listening again to Joni Mitchell, as well as the elm and looking at cliffs with Giya in the rain. 

Dusk and the coast road from Brighton Marina wall