Sofa time

Hello, God.

Headachey on this dismal, rainy day. Really needing a nap but not enough time before school pickup, and after it, not enough quiet. 

So here I am with coffee (decaf) and half a packet of biscuits. Where is the other half? I think you know. 

I'm not feeling very cheerful. Not feeling positive. Feeling blurred and full of yawns. This morning I had coffee with friends and it was very pleasant but the things that stick in my mind are the bad things, the hurty things. A loved one with cancer. Abnormalities detected at a 32 week scan. A marriage in trouble. Shocking things on the news. It's all very depressing.

So I'm going to do that thing where I praise you from the depths of feeling not very worshippy. 

I am sitting here and I am warm on the sofa and there are flames in the fire and the rain is beating on the window. There are two robins in the garden, not minding the rain. The orangey-red of their breasts is bright against the grey and brown and dark green. On the table are a vase of lilies; sumptuous, sensual fragrance filling this room. It's quiet and cosy. Katy's Scruffy Barney sits on the window sill where she places him each morning so that he can look out and welcome her home. The lamp is on; the light is yellow. You're sitting next to me and there's beauty everywhere.

We're just sitting in companionable silence. 

Listen. There's rain on the window. Smell the lilies. See the little red-breasted birds with heads on one side listening for worms. Feel the softness of the cushions and the little dimple on the home keys. Afternoons like this are why the word 'soporific' was invented. 

Beautiful.
Where's the spider?

There are two ways to look at everything. Last week there was a morning where the children's bloodcurdling shrieks awoke me far too early because of a spider in Katy's bedroom. Yesterday morning I pulled back my curtains and spanning the open of the window was a beautiful spider's lit up by the sunrise and in sparkling silver relief against a dark tree. Both the girls wanted to climb onto the window sill to see and we marvelled at its fragility. (I didn't like to point out that if there was a web across the window opening, the spider might be outside, or... but that's not the point.) 

Thankyou, Father. 

For the climate that we live in where we have rain to make things grow, and sunshine, occasionally, too. Thankyou for the myriad of blessings that I take so much for granted; for living rooms and lilies and the miracle of the Internet which means that I can connect with beautiful people with new haircuts on the other side of the world and check out the way they see life. I can't get my head around it. 

Thankyou for quiet. And thankyou in advance for noise as well, when my girls get home. I suspect I might forget to thank you at that point. Thankyou as much in the grey as in the yellow and blue. As much in the rain as the sunshine. As much with a headache as when feeling fine. Thankyou when I'm hemmed in with bad news as when things are all tickety-boo in my world. 

Thankyou with half-open eyes and feet up and again in half an hour's time when I'll be clutching a raincoat closed and waiting outside the school. 

I praise you for company and for solitude. For robins and biscuits and vases of flowers. For sunrises and spiders. For time, you and me, sitting here with a third of a packet of biscuits. 

You don't fancy going to collect the children from school while I have forty winks, do you?