Pic of the week 2/2/20
And so time marches inexorably onwards, and January has become February – normally a minor milepost to celebrate passing and, indeed, the weather is, perhaps, improving (certainly better than 12 months ago when we lay under a blanket of snow) and the evenings are noticeably lighter but, this year, the transition from January to February has left a hole in my heart and a heaviness on my soul.
I – we – are no longer Europeans, and that saddens me.
OK, so we are now in a 12 month transition period so we’ll not notice much different just yet, but we will. Perhaps not perceptively, perhaps the sky won’t come crashing down, but we will be poorer, we will be more insular, we will be more restricted in what we can do. We, as a nation, have done ourselves enormous and lasting self-harm.
But, in the words of that great soul song smith Marvin Gaye, change what you can, but what you can’t leave it alone and have the sense to know the difference between the two.
So upwards and onwards in to the Spring sunshine. Today did feel warm and there were times as I refereed on a very muddy Pawlett Pavilion pitch today that the sun shone that one got the sense that back of winter has been broken. Brave clumps of daffodils are beginning to burst into bloom, including a handful in our front garden.
But one must note that February has arrived and I’ve still to shed all my Christmas excess weight. Although the scales have been inching downwards, they still sit stubbornly above the 13 stone mark and that does need to be addressed – I can’t march into March still carrying winter fat.