Belated Happy New Year.

As we begin another decade the word which seems to me to be the one that is most needed is HOPE

I hope that this new year will prove a happy one for us all after the turmoil of 2019 and with the world in the state it is I feel the word HOPE is so important.
(This lovely little felt decoration was a gift from my American friend of over 60 years!)

So this post is all about hope and some of the many guises it comes in.

Back in November we went to London for a few days - I wanted to attend the Resurgence Festival of Wellbeing to hear some of the interesting speakers lined up see here for a list of them two of whom were authors - one being Raynor Winn whose book The Salt Path I'd found inspiring telling as it did about how sometimes when the worst things happen it turns out to be something to be grateful for in the end a real story of triumph over adversity and the other Isabella Tree whose book Wilding was the most hopeful tale I'd heard and showed how Nature can and will repair the damage intensive farming has done to the land and how wildlife will return if given a chance.  If you haven't read them I can recommend them highly.

On Christmas day as we were on our own, The Wanderer not being able to come and join us due to train strikes, and as lunch was not going to be the traditional Christmas Day meal of turkey and all the trimmings I decided to go for a walk in the morning (waiting till after lunch usually means it is getting dark before I get back) and so off I went up through the woods.  The sky was blue and the sun was shining and I noticed the first primrose along the path just the one but a note of HOPE,

I continued my walk along this lane and came to a field gate with a huge puddle in front of it reflecting the blue sky and after all the rain we'd had it too seemed to be a note of HOPE for better drier weather to come perhaps.

I returned home in time to get some lunch for us feeling much more HOPEful than when I'd set off. I had been feeling a bit low as is usual for me at this time of year.

  
Today 10 days later I did the same walk in different weather - it was cloudy but with occasional sunny intervals and the ground underfoot was much drier and noticed that there were now more primroses on the little plant 

and many more daffodils in bloom too.

That's what gives me HOPE - Nature will continue doing what she does best and the wildlife - the birds were everywhere singing - and plants give me inspiration and HOPE that 2020 will be a better year for us all both in terms of health and happiness as well as on the world stage and politically.  Maybe we are not meant to live peaceful lives but to do what we can to remain HOPEful.  

(Do any of the other bloggers who have returned to blogging after being away for a long time find stringing together a few words much harder than it used to be?  My muse seems to have left me as when I blogged regularly I found it easy?)