At last, Half Term!

It can't only be a few weeks since the Christmas holidays - it feels like months. In our house we are ready for the break - a few lie-ins, a chance to pay the garden some attention and lots of opportunities to have fun.

There's a lot to do in the house and the plan for keeping the children entertained sounds like a military exercise, the 'to-do' list is up to 12 items - suddenly this doesn't feel quite so relaxing and spacious, more a different kind of labour. Is it possible to find space in the complex arena of modern family life? Is it possible to make space for each other and to stop and smell the breeze?

The flowering cherry tree at the back of the garden is breaking into flower, the sun is out, birds are singing. Perhaps the space is found in the moment, the spontaneous, rather than in the planned and filled hours.

What helps you take a moment?

Looking Back

Technology is a marvellous thing. Over the years my family has taken many thousands of photographs and at present they take up a ridiculous amount of space in our spare room. We've gone on to digital now, so we take even more piccies we just forget to look at them!

Anyhow, in an effort to make room to store other forms of tat, we are in the process of scanning all our old photos to disk - a mammoth task. But it's not the chore we thought it was going to be, because every few pages in an album produces a squeal or giggle or 'awww' (you know that slightly yukky noise parents make when looking at old pictures of their kids). It is special going back over old photo's - partly nostalgic, but also because they are of happy occasions. I've found it really cathartic, but also a challenge to keep making the most of every day.

In looking at the joy on my son's face when he was about 3 sticking old cardboard boxes together to make a dragon, or my daughter's delight at first flying a kite - I remember that simple pleasures and an excitement about the everyday little things are the things that make life special.

Back to the scanning - oh, here's one of me before my hair began to go grey - hmm, moving swiftly on....

Drifting with the snow

Today I had lots of plans. Despite having heard the weather forecast for the last 3 days tell me it was going to snow heavily I didn't change them - mistake! My daughter's school is shut, my son is on a skiing holiday and has less snow in Austria than in my back garden and my husband has trudged the three miles to work looking like a yeti.

Should I complain? Not really. I've rearranged all my appointments for another day, eaten hot buttered toast, drank a huge mug of hot chocolate (fairly traded organic of course) and am still snuggled up in my fleecy robe. Not only this but I have spent a good deal of time watching the snow on the jasmin bush outside my window as it builds, builds, builds and then falls off in great sloppy dollops. Suddenly the plans are not so important. What is really crucial is the snow ball fight I plan to have with my daughter, the hours watching my garden transform into a glorious landscape of brilliant soft snow and the feeling of getting warm and dry after bulding 'Melinda the Snow Girl' (a promise made in a moment of weakness).

This is transcendance, this is a glimpse of the glory of God, this is a chance to say, 'stuff all those things I meant to do - today I connect with something more elemental today I will have fun!!'

I hope if you are in a snowy place today that you are safe and warm and that you have some fun.