Off New Shaw Lane in February

A glimpse of sunshine can lift the spirits!

It is so easy to lose impetus, especially at this time of year. The light is drab, it is miserably damp and there always seem to be a million other jobs that need to be done. Last blog was last Sunday. I knew that I had missed a day or two, but I didn't realise it was nearly a week.

(They have done something to Blogger. They have changed the settings and suddenly it is trying to correct my perfectly good spelling of English words because I'm not spelling them the 'murican way. If it does not stop telling me to spell ise words with a z I am going to put a boot through the screen. As a friend of mine says "This computer may be able to beat me at Chess but it won't win at kick boxing!")

Right, having been distracted by that minor annoyance, let us try to get back to the flow of things.

The weather this week has been strange. On Monday there was still a lot of frozen ice that was once snow about on the pavements and especially on the lanes that I, and Jasper, walk along. Since Monday, the weather has become warmer day by day, I think today it must be up to about 6 degrees. However, along with the improving temperature has come drizzly rain that leaves you feeling quite put upon by the Universe in general.

It is a grey time of year here in the North of England, well, I think that it is! And it's my blog so you can take your opinion and ............. I don't mean literally grey, but the grass is a dull green, the sky is usually a dull grey, the trees are still leafless and look quite lifeless. But things can take a turn for the better so easily. This photograph was actually yesterday morning. I took the phone, not the camera, because I was only planning to do our usual 4 mile walk and it looked grey and likely to rain. All the way round the walk, almost to the end, it was the same. Then, just as we were crossing the grassy area between New Shaw Lane and Green Lane (a misnomer if there ever was one. Better to call it concrete and brick lane, but maybe it was green once) a patch of blue sky appeared a little bit of God's good sunlight illuminated a pool in the stream that runs across the grass. And that is all it takes to brighten things up and make me feel a bit happier.

Just at lunch time today I was staring out through the window from the Kitchen into the back garden, wondering when this drizzle would stop, and my darling wife pointed out the snowdrops growing at the bottom of the garden, just below the Acer. All through that snow they have been hiding, waiting for things to improve, and today, up they have popped. Delightful.

My neighbour, Graham, was clearing the snow from his garden this morning and throwing it onto his driveway. What, two weeks ago he was digging it off the driveway and piling it up on the garden. I berated him gently for making work for himself, but I think he is just that way inclined. Can't sit still and enjoy the gentle sound of the snow melting. But melt it has. A day of miserable drizzle is the best way of clearing away the remnants of the snow. Remember the picture of the snowman I put up on here several posts ago, well the poor thing did not survive. "Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis" as we Classicists say!
Probably a misquote, but I have to give my detractors something to detract.

Had an excellent Evening yesterday. It was the February meeting of my Masonic Lodge and we brought a new member into the Lodge. I know that the world seems to be full of people who believe that we Masons are taking over and that we run the infrastructure, Legal and administrative sections of the entire world, but I don't know how we do it with a basically declining membership. So a new member, an excellent young man, is a good sign. We had a wonderful evening with the ceremony worked by a group of, mostly, young Masons. What a superb job they did, an excellent sign that the future of my Lodge, now 223 years old, is in safe hands. A very enjoyable meal, (Yes, Danielle, Roast Beef again) and pleasant companionship was a superb end to the day. What really impressed me a great deal was the fact that our new member's friend, who has been close to him since they were 8, and who is a Mason down in Hampshire, flew up to Manchester specially for the ceremony. Not bad going John!

Mind you, I have not done much today, and won't be doing much more today. So with that exciting thought I will love you all and leave you for today.

Faites des beaux reves! (I bet I've got that wrong as well!)