Earth Stood Hard As Iron

And so Nablopomo is drawing to a close. Though I still don't really understand the 'Na' bit - I mean national... After all it is being done by folks across the globe as far as I can tell. Certainly in France and the US! It has at times felt like a pressure, but far more often a welcome challenge and a pleasure. Goodness knows I need a few bits of structure in my strangely formless life at the moment. And it's interesting what I find I can come up with, even on days when I've been scratching my head and feeling devoid of creative ideas or energy. I think the main thing I've got from it is to be reminded how much I enjoy the kind of writing I do on trains, in waiting rooms, cafes and the like. Writing about the minutiae of everyday life, and observing people and their infinite weirdness gives me great pleasure and seems to have been well-received here too.

The freezing weather continues, and every time I go out walking, the line from In The Bleak Midwinter - earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone - plays in my head. There'll be no digging the allotment for the foreseeable future. Most of the time the sun has shone on the frost and snow, and the light has been crystalline, and there's been little wind. Sometimes early in the morning, or as the sun goes down there is gorgeous pinkness in the clouds. Tonight there is heavy snow forecast, so conditions could get a great deal more challenging than they have been so far. This would not be a worry except that I'm due to travel south on Friday, and back home on Monday. By train I hasten to add. Nonetheless things can go a bit pear-shaped even on the railways if there's a lot of snowfall in a short time. No need for any difficult decision-making yetawhile.

I'm going to stay at my Mum's, and take the opportunity also to spend a little time with friend K whom I haven't seen since the summer. One of her oldest and dearest friends is dying, and she has been spending much of her free time with her. I've also been invited to join a very dear group of old friends, which includes K, for lunch at the Skylon restaurant in the Royal Festival Hall on Saturday. We all did our psychotherapy training together, and for many years thereafter, we all met monthly to support one another and do peer supervision, drink tea, and eat cake, and generally hang out. For the last few years they've been meeting four times a year, just socially, to eat lunch and catch up. Sadly I had to leave the group when we moved up here, but one of the group invited me to join them again this year for their pre-Christmas get together, and I was delighted to accept, despite the fact that I can't afford it whatsoever at all. Sometimes you just have to do these things though, and throw caution to the winds! K's friend is dying, J's father has just died, and I have had the year from hell, so I think we all feel just how precious old friends are to us right now.