Jan again

Starting again as always is hard I usually get to the the end of this sentence and go off and do something else. Come back and hope the ideas flow and sometimes they do and I plod on. I should start with a beginning and work out wards. So dropped daughter number 2 off at her drama classes and went across to Forge Mill Lake up by junction 7 of the M6. I went for a walk around the lake, there I am fitting a "relaxing" peaceful walk between fetching and carrying of Children. Next week I will try and do it differently. Not sure exactly yet. I did have a plan and a routine that I liked on a Saturday and then at the beginning of the year it changed. I do blame my eldest she got too old for the class and wanted to move up into the senior, OK so they start at 12 not at 10 and , and .. and I could go on for ever.

So what about the lake, it was quiet and the walk was good. This winter has been cold for longer than I remember. I know the very cold spell has passed for now, but the lakes and canals still have ice. Memory does play tricks and the fact that it is only in the last few years that I have paid real attention. anyway the stand out memory was walking along and out of the general quiet overhearing, is the only way I have of describing it, the tweeting and calling of small birds and peering into branches of the nearest thicket seeing not much and then as I got my eye in catching sight of lots of small blobs hopping around in the branches. I eventually worked out there were siskins and redpoll and very probably others in there, but I had reached the limit of my identification skills. Trying to take a picture was fun, not. they just did not want to keep still, just flitting from branch to twig and back again. Then it went quite and they stayed still. I looked up to catch a sparrowhawk drift overhead.

This all took probably 2 - 3 min, but , I decided to wander on and get back to the car. It did mean I got to drink half a cup of tea before I had to go take daughter number 1 and rescue number 2.

In the middle of this I met up with Lauren, who likes my pictures and we talked through some of the ideas that she had. On the one hand it really positive that that someone else likes what I do and in way have begun to take for granted and counterbalancing this is feeling that someone is looking at this and what will they be thinking and will this influence what I write.

It was also good for me to talk about my pictures to listen to some one else read things into them that I have not thought about. I remember my context for the image. There were a couple of pics that Lauren had a different perspective and used the image to illustrate whole set of different things that I just never even thought of.

Change is hard, I like to be able to predict the future and if someone or something else is going to change the rules I want six months notice and several dry runs before I agree to it. If only!!
But if I don't like where I am now, if I am not happy, what is there to do. The problem for me has often been that I have not been happy and tried to change the world around me( usually on a small scale) and have become even more frustrated when I am still not happy. So trying to change job, change the relationship. What needs to change is me, maybe even as small as the way I look at the world. As you know getting supertankers to change course is hard and takes a long time.

I am happier now than for all my adult life and I do remember being fairly miserable as a teenager.

So onwards before I begin analyse everything to death.

Bedtime