Covid Times . Getting Older . Introspection
Simple or Guilty Pleasures – You Decide
On March 23, 2021 by Speranza
The very first day of Spring arrived this week and felt especially festive and exciting after The Covid Winter we’ve all endured. Even though the sun’s rays were weak, we raised our faces to it like the first Snowdrops and breathed in that sweet perfume of damp earth and soft breezes that will soon scent my laundry on the line. Our first walk was purposefully slow and we stopped to examine each bit of colour pressing upwards through the ground, like the pagans we have become. There was also a thrilling, scurrying streak of brown which turned out to be a groundhog who was unsuccessfully trying to camouflage himself by backing into an old tree stump at top speed but seemed to forget that his entire face was still on display and his glassy black eyes carefully swivelled to watch till we had passed. He was, delightful.
Books . Covid Times . Insomnia
What to Read when you can’t Sleep
On February 15, 2021 by Speranza
A well meaning but spectacularly uncool Auntie of mine once bought me The Friendship Book of Francis Gay, for Christmas when I was a teenager. (And by the way, this is the only way anyone ever referred to this book: the title, then the author, all at once – but always together). This little book promised an “inspiring thought” for each day of the year and provided iconic yet unlikely photos such as a benevolent postman peddling down a laneway or a jocular milkman enjoying a quiet joke outside a thatched cottage.
Covid Times . Introspection . Top Ten Lists
Top Ten List of Small Things
On January 30, 2021 by Speranza
This is not intended to be yet another gust of Pollyanna-overload – I only seek to catalogue a few of the things that have helped even a little during these endless days of sad news. I think it was Stephen Colbert, (himself one of these helpful things) who commented recently that he was really looking forward to not hearing the words “another grim milestone” every.single.day. I am also acutely aware how lucky we are to be able to plan and discuss coping strategies – because after all, the luxury of time, companionship and good food are all such individual gifts.
And I get that.
Covid Times . Introspection . My Brothers . Sadness
Happy New Year, try not to laugh …
On January 8, 2021 by Speranza
Hard to write about anything today without commenting on the endlessly distressing news (er, and Happy New Year everyone) but I will now try to do that very thing. Those who know me, will testify that I have always been about savouring and appreciating The Small Things (even before it became fashionable to do so and we all had to read about the technique in someone’s bestselling book).
But truly, it really is all that we have.
Covid Times . Getting Older
Losing your Marbles – or not
On December 30, 2020 by Speranza
So hard to believe that The Pandemic year has been almost exactly that now – an entire year. With more intense lockdowns returning this week and the growing, trembling realization that this whole thing may not have been handled as well by our government as we previously thought, I am trying to return to focusing on the few things that I can control here in my own world. Sadly, this must include the rat’s nest that is called my study. I am usually very much on top of this stuff but slowly it has turned into such a landslide of papers, filing and debris that I had to begin a Shred-Off – and this is only Day 2.