Make time to do something kind for yourself . That was not on my calendar . It was in a list of things someone once told me to do to cheer myself up since we were locked down by Covid . I had forgotten about it to be honest . There must have been thirty things to occupy your mind and I remembered none of them until this morning . Perhaps today my making time for doing something kind for myself was to lie in late and not get up so early. Be a little lazy . Treat myself to a new book . I had the Other Girl to read . A book I had purchased after watching the drama on BBC a few weeks ago . Perhaps I could make that Minestrone soup I had been planning . Or eat that box of chocolates.
. So many ideas. So many choices I guessed though that with a little bit of thought it was easy to do something kind for yourself . Dont judge myself if I dont get out for that walk. Dont judge myself if I dont swim a mile today . If I miss something dont
Month 22 of lockdown in one form or another . Perhaps it was easier now with just local firebreaks and not the enforced stay in your house for the next month. Dont go further than five miles from home. We did have a little more freedom but normality still feels a long way off . Omicron doing the rounds. 63.6% of our population in the UK now fully vaccinated and had their boosters . Still a long way to go . We will be due another in a few more months . Shortages of testing kits . Free testing kits ending and a charge being made for them . That will slow down the use of them as people refuse to pay £4 for a weeks worth of testing kits . The figures of positive cases might well go down without all the testing . Millions have died of other things rather than Covid . Time to move on .
What will today bring? Rain possibly . Cold , frozen windscreens . Still too dark to go out for walks early in the morning . The
sunrises are spectacular . A huge orb of bright orange fills the sky . Red sky in the morning -shepherds warning . The heat from the sun is still weak so the roads are slippy . The puddles are frozen over and layer of ice means that walking is difficult . I have to walk later but there are signs that the nights are drawing out and the mornings getting lighter. The robins sing . I hear them in the trees . I see bike riders out . Some shout a cheery good morning . Others flash by without giving me a glance .
Last year this time the river was high. The roads were flooded . This year it feels different . We are still not out of the woods yet . There is still plenty of time for high water levels and flooding again. There is still time for snow. As I pick my way up the river I wonder how many actually stop and look at that red sun . Not many. The village seems dead. The Christmas Quiz boards have been put away for another year. The decorations and the tree outside the church have
been taken down . The door wreaths on houses are removed now that we are in the new year. Perhaps next year I will put one up. I might make one . Buy a ring , decorate it with white , silver and green knitted flowers . seems to have put bows on their doors down here . The lights are removed from the garden shrubs and trees .
I pass a few houses all quiet . A number of farms equally quiet . The cows moo in the fields , Sometimes I hear the sound of sheep or crows argueing as they fly by. I look at the names on the farms. I am up Wallington Lane so I find Wallington Farm, The Laurels, Laburnum Cottage. I hear the woodpecker again . Tap Tap - I dont know where he is but I can hear him. The first of the white snowdrops have appeared . A sign that Spring is just around the corner . And then home - to make time to do a kind act to someone else and brighten their day. I wondered if a cup of coffee and a cake would brighten the drivers day. The coffee maker went on , the cake was brought out and I hoped that he felt that brightened his day .
