What a Difference a Month Makes

Day 31 - 8:10am, 31st January 2019

It's amazing the difference a month makes, 31 little days. For one, the iPhone is no longer desperate to correct the lighting first thing in the morning, but that aside. We are leaving behind the blues of January, with its focus on self help, of turning over a new leaf and for re-inventing yourself. In its place is February, when we begin to venture out of our caves and think about love. (Presumably, a month of gym visits and promising to give up all chocolate biscuits once the Christmas goodies have been cleared is enough to rebuild our self esteem and make us adorable to whomever we want to flaunt ourselves to.) And it is the only month of the year that changes its duration, where there is some give and take to get us back into line.

There is some speculation as to whether a painting that appeared yesterday on a wall in Edinburgh is a Banksy. If it is decreed it is, presumably by Banksy owning it, then Edinburgh has its latest tourist attraction. I can't see anyone being able to sell it though. You might be able to sell off your garage in Wales for £100,000, but it is a bit harder to pull apart the side of a tenement! That might just be a little bit too much give and take . . .

Living on the White Side of the Street

Day 30 - 09:19am, Wednesday 30 January 2019

The temperature has dropped again today. This is confirmed by Surfer Dude, let's call him, who has caved in to the weather to the extent that today he is prepared to wear a hoodie. Still wearing short shorts and with large swathes of bare leg, but this time he's teamed them with a hoodie. I wonder how cold it would have to get for him to acquiesce to a pair of trousers.

It makes me smile as it reminds me of my own Little Master. He too, if given the choice, would be in shorts regardless of the weather. I often wonder if people look at him and think: poor child, could his mother not have given him trousers on a day like today? When the truth is generally that mummy did and he chose to ignore them. And I've long since learned that you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink, particularly if they are autistic. He knows his own mind and body.

I love how the winter divides our street into them and us. Them is the sunny side of the street and by lunchtime, the pavement is black and shiny. Us is the white side of the street, where the frost never lifts because the sun never manages to rise above the line of the houses. You would think it could make more of an effort to be inclusive.

Mr Fox doesn't discriminate. Walking back from Brownies tonight, I spot him fleeing from our garden. He swiftly crosses to the other side of the street and disappears from sight. Little Miss hasn't see him and expresses her disappointment. Mr Fox, as she calls him and all of foxhood, is a regular visitor to Grandma and Grandpa's garden, where he is tame enough (or at least, blase enough) not to be spooked by children peering at him through the conservatory. This fellow is more jumpy. He too knows his own mind.

My Favourite Things

Day 29 - 10am, 29 January 2019

I ask the nursery children what their favourite place is so that we can to use it as a location for our story massage; I am expecting to hear "the park." Instead, they venture Nandos, Tesco's, Sainsbury's ("that's my mum's favourite place") and TK Maxx! And the massage move that sums them up best is 'the drum' - a move that is like gentle birthday bumps. I must be doing something wrong, because children plus shops has never been a combination that works for me.

But we go with it. And so our story dutiful meanders from the park to the shops and restaurant and then back home again. Where the snakes, a snail, Incy Wincy Spider and a dinosaur engage in my favourite activity, which today is sleeping. Goodnight!

Taking the Day as it Comes

Day 28 - 8:14am, 28th January 2019

I think the iPhone needs to take the credit for this photo. It still wants to fix the lighting, but for being taken when I didn't even have time to stop and point the camera at anything in particular, it is a miracle it is not as blurry as I was blurry-eyed at the time. 

For someone with a headache who had intended to go to bed early, bed was a shameful one am affair last night. And I am not good on lack of sleep, I admit that freely. It has its uses at times. When you are struggling to get the words out and there is a deadline looming, it can help that your brain has left the building and you let whatever it is you are writing write itself. But, generally speaking, I crumple after one night. Any productivity gains are fleeting, at best, and living with the she-devil the next day is not nice for anyone, including me.

 Almost ten hours on from the walk-by photo shoot, however, today has panned out okay. Bus pass replaced for free before work, including photo that is marginally better than the last, meaning I made yoga at lunchtime. The piece of work I was working on finished and inroads made elsewhere. Little Miss seems to have forgotten about her homework, which is good, because the thought of creating a model eco-house of the future is a stretch further than I feel like going tonight. 

Of course, it could mean that I write the addresses on the remaining kids' thank you cards from Christmas ready to post tomorrow, plan the story massage sessions for the nursery and nurture groups tomorrow, or even do any of the other things that remain unchecked on my to do list. Or maybe I could just make myself a cup of coffee and watch old episodes of The Simpsons instead.

When There's Nothing to Say

Day 27 - 11:35am, 27th January 2019

As I approach the Water, there are a group of people with wheelbarrows in the car park of the visitor centre, suggesting they have been out or are about to go out on a river clear up. I am pleased to see when I get to the bridge that both Christmas trees have gone from the water. But then I feel a pang of guilt that I come here every day as an observer, not a doer. I stand quietly by.

I read a TIME article that the monk that taught the West mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh has gone home to 'transition' from life to death. He has stopped his medication, which he took following a stroke three years ago. The article highlights that not only is he able to physically speak any more, but that he has been criticised for not having spoken out about the Communist party. The piece draws to a close with the reminder that Buddhism teaches that Nhat Hanh needs to offer his presence . . . "the Zen master is evidently playing the long game - the longest game of all, in fact, which is eternity." Sometimes, words are not necessary, our presence, or lack of it, says it all.

Just in Time

Day 26, 9:51am, 26 January 2019

I get Little Miss to her Acro Dance just in time. Afterwards, we just make the bus to take us into town. 'Just in time' seems synonymous with life at the moment. Scraping by, everything last minute. So buying her Girlguiding blanket and getting back in time for lunch and before the boys go to taekwon-do seems like a victory. A small one, but a victory. Or it does until I lose my bus pass. It is either lost on the bus to the hairdressers, at the hairdressers or in Iceland (the shop). It rattles me and I feel the tension rising within me. Back home, I am more sharp with the kids than I intend to be at their token tidying up efforts. 

It takes a trip to see Stan and Ollie to resettle me. I don't get Laurel and Hardy. Slapstick in general does not appeal. I don't warm to their characters either during most of it, it feels a little mawkish to be watching their decline. But as the film draws to a close, tears roll down my cheek as I am half expecting Hardy to collapse on stage as they make their final performance. Just in time, it feels like I have found a heart and the tears are cathartic.

On the Defence

Day 25 - 7:52am, 25th January 2019

A poem appears in my memories on Facebook this morning. It makes me smile. I wrote it about a year ago when I opened a jar of hot chocolate for the first time and found that there was a "contents may settle during transit" message on endless repeat across the foil.

A year on, and it is the catering staff at work that seem to be worried how users may react, deciding a pre-emptive message is required before all hell breaks loose. I can only assume that they think the news that the milk is now being kept in the fridge by the coffee machine will prompt some sort of revolution or be the source of numerous complaints - milk in the fridge, by heavens!

A piece of headed paper has been stuck to the machine, which announces in large capital letters and a new font colour that it is a "Polite Notice." I can't remember the exact wording of what it says, only that it is awkwardly written and contains double the amount of words that it needs to. Basically, what it amounts to is that the milk should be kept in the fridge by the coffee machine, not on the counter top as it has until now. It ends with the allergen advice that the milk may contain milk.

I am interested to find out how they scale up from a polite notice. Is the next one going to contain swear words? Will it be a 'by order' and if so, by whom? It is a sad state of affairs that we should be reduced to this sort of paranoia-induced bureaucracy.

Why is it that everybody feels the need to be on the defence? Give us all a little credit. Surely, a post-it note saying "Milk in fridge" would have sufficed so that people knew where to look the first time they saw it wasn't on the counter. Especially given that most people circumvent the counter-top milk and head for the fresh milk in the fridge anyway.

Following the String Course

I have still been thinking a lot about the Sea of Trees from Tuesday. I am haunted by the poet talking about blue and red pieces of thread. Apparently, those who go into the forest to commit suicide often tie blue plastic threads to the trees so that they can either find their way back or to show the park rangers where to find their body when they are gone. In his poem, the poet contrasts this with the idea in Japanese folklore of invisible red threads that tie our souls to one another.

This reminds me of red arteries and blue veins, circulating our body and maintaining our lives. Both are red, but it is not obvious, because the blood going back to the heart in the veins appears blue. How close life and death are, a constant cycle of red and blue, neither more important than the other, both equally necessary, all the time. Without one there is no other.

I like the idea that there is always a lifeline, right to the last minute, that there is always the hope that in the deathly forest they can find life. The lava may have driven life from the mountainside, but life returns. Not pretty, perhaps, but it adapts. It finds a way. I pray that everyone who goes to the forest finds there way home.

Twinkle, Twinkle,

Day 23 - 9:37am, 23 January 2019

Jack Frost must have been working hard last night, pasting his crystals to the ground. This morning they are everywhere. The car thermometer is showing minus four degrees. It is so cold, it hurts my face and chest to breathe. Yet, coming along the road just after I take the photo, a student I'm assuming passes me wearing only a pair of very short shorts and a matching t-shirt. His gait suggests he has all the time in the world. The only thing he is missing is a surf board and he wouldn't have looked out of place on an Australian beach, but he breezes past nonetheless, seemingly immune to the bone-chilling frost in the air.

I walk Little Miss up to Brownies. The pavement is alive with an endless supply of crystals, winking up at us. The frost has not lifted here all day, it has etched itself to the pavement. But just over an hour later I return to collect her. The temperature has lifted and the sparkle has gone, leaving behind a black, soggy pavement. The sparkle is still there though, albeit in patches. You just have to look a little harder to find it and that's okay. 

Joining the Dots

Day 22 - 1:30pm, 22 January 2019

There's no GPS in the suicide forest, nor compasses; iron deposits in the volcanic soil are thought to knock them out. Aokigahara (青木ヶ原), also known as the Sea of Trees (樹海), sits at the bottom of Mount Fiji. The trees have grown out of hardened lava, the calling card of an eruption that happened some 300 years ago. Their roots cannot penetrate the earth to a great depth so they compensate by forming an above-the-ground network. There is little in the way of wildlife and the trees are so dense in parts that the sun cannot stretch down to the forest floor and the wind ruffles its hair (hence the sea of trees) but cannot weave a dance through it. There is also the danger of coming upon a corpse or the This is no place to go forest bathing.

But today I go virtual forest bathing, listening to a radio programme about the suicide forest, in which a small group of poets go into the forest to write poetry. One of the poets explains that there is an invisible layer of words over everything, a presence that others are unaware of - the poet's job is to see the connections and raise others' awareness of the words by joining the dots.

And that is what I am aiming for here - in my life, work, family, writing and even in the daily walk down here - to find the points of connection. Sometimes all I see are dots, sprinkled everywhere, senseless, meaningless, random and tiring; but once I can see the connection, it is there, self-supporting. A weight lifted. I create the bridge, but then I walk over it and move on.

A Nice View on Blue Monday

Day 21 - 8:25am, 21 January 2019

It's one am, and for anyone that knows me, that is about four hours past my functioning ability! So this is going to be brief, particularly as I know tomorrow is going to be a crazy busy. It starts with a child planning meeting for Little Master, there's a Bodybalance class to go to, online food shopping to take delivery of, kids to pick up from school and get to the dentist. Little Miss then has gymnastics and hubby (and I, if I have the energy to go and can be bothered to arrange a babysitter) have a parent council meeting in the evening. Little Master still has homework that needs completing and Little Miss is keen to push on with hers. Everything is being run to a schedule.

Hot on the heels of the blood red moon, it is Blue Monday. (Technically not as its past midnight, but let's run with it.) I am reflective, not necessarily because of the moon's position in the sky or the fact that it is the third Monday in January, but having written my notes in advance of tomorrow morning's meeting, I realise there is much to be positive about. When you stop and think about it, his progress has been noticeable. It's harder to see it without that longer timeline, because day-to-day it is hard sometimes hard to raise your head above the parapet. But it's all about perspective, and he's got places to go has our lad, they all do.

Apparently, the fireworks in the sky are not over. The moon may no longer be red, but today's event is the conjunction of Saturn and Pluto. I love the way the local paper reports it. The headline reads, "Miss the Super Blood Wolf Moon? You can see another stunning astronomical event tonight." The article notes that tonight will be a rare Venus-Jupiter conjunction, known as "kissing planets", where the planets temporarily appear closer together in the night sky. But almost as soon as they offer this golden nugget - sensual planets, who knew! - they take the shine off it. Of course, they are not really near one another, it's all a matter of perspective and some 365 million miles. And, according to NASA, a conjunction has no astronomical value, but it's nice to view. On Blue Monday, that seems good enough for me.

Slipping from Day to Night

Day 20 - 4:15pm, 20 January 2019

The Christmas tree is still there, but today it has been joined by a second one, just out of sight in the photo. It is standing upright, caught between stones. The sky further to the left of the photo is a full palette of red streaks, elongated across the sky, but here it is untouched. Tonight is to be a lunar eclipse and so I come face-to-face with the full moon on my way back. I take a photo, but find that it does not do it justice. I try again, further up the hill, unthinkingly deciding that if I get a few steps closer, the moon will somehow get noticeably bigger. It doesn't. I'll just have to live with it the size it is.

The Death of a Tree

Day 19 - 10:34am, 19 January 2019

There's a Christmas tree in the water, you can see it just beyond the tree branches. I wonder that someone would go to the effort of getting it there. It is close to the bowling club side of the river, so either they have had to go through the bowling club to dump it there, or it's been lobbed from the other bank - and no, it's not a huge Christmas tree, but it would still have required some force to propel it so far. However, thinking about it now, the most likely option is that the tree had been left out on the street awaiting council pickup and someone has decided to use it for a game of giant Pooh sticks. Having been tipped over the bridge, it has then floated a little further downstream before grinding to a halt where it has. 

The tree looks odd, its straight lines marring the softness of all that surrounds it. The fact that the trunk has been cut has severed its roots; one more thing that humanity has denuded, all for the sake of having a 'Christmas' tree. We have objectified it, turning the tree from a living, life-giver to a dead or dying decoration. No matter how much we dress it up in bright colours and twinkly lights, we are just waiting for the tree to die. And so I mourn the lost chances for the birds to sit on the branches of this tree, for it to be part of a forest of trees, and to die a natural death. Its open grave haunts me.

A Visitor from the Other Realm

Day 18 - 8:10am, 18 January 2019

There are big improvements in the levels of light in the mornings. It is all but daylight when I take the photo this morning. There is a bus due and so rather than doubling back to my usual stop after taking the photo, I walk the few steps to the earlier bus stop. As I join the queue, a robin flies down o the pavement and hops backward and forward within touching distance of us. 

I am mesmerised, as is the woman in front of me, whose head turns to watch it. For such a little bird, its front plumage packs some punch, both in terms of its richness and how far it extends over his body. This is no shy, retiring gentleman. If a robin could smile, then this little chap was grinning at us, confidently tilting his head from side to side, flirting with us. You might have expected him to feel vulnerable on the pavement and be seeking a swift exit to the relative safety of the woods along the river. 

From this short encounter, I can see why people would want to believe that robins are a sign that our loved ones are near. I'd like to think it was my Grandpa, checking in on me and signalling his approval for my river photography. No doubt, the woman in front of me was reading her own story into it. But that's okay, the river and the robin can accommodate that.

Beyond the Known World

Day 17 - 8:13am, 18 January 2019

Making tea after Bodybalance tonight, I catch the end of a radio interview with author Diane Setterfield speaking about her new novel Once Upon a River. She is explaining that as a child she read a story of a young child that had drowned and then come back to life again. The story had made a deep impression on her, providing her with some comfort as her sister was seriously ill at the time. As an adult she came across a second case of a toddler drowning in an icy river and then being brought back to life. What at first seemed extraordinary, turns out to be explained by our growing understanding of the science behind it. This ended up as the inspiration for her latest novel, set around the Thames. In answering the interviewer's further questions, Diane Setterfield went on to suggest that the river was the second writer of the book and how walking by the river can thwart writers' block. High praise indeed!

Then as I ate my tea, I watched the Sky at Night. It was reporting on the New Horizons fly by of Ultima Thule (meaning 'Beyond the Known World'), the most primordial planetary object to be explored, probably having sat in the Kuiper Belt, beyond the orbit of Neptune, for an estimated 4.6 billion years. It is a good example of why I don't tend to watch astronomy programmes: the figures are so big that they fry my mind. For example, the probe has been in continual flight since 2006 (some 4,746 days) to reach an object that is so far distant that it receives 0.05% of the sunlight that the earth does. The 'geeks', including Professor Brian May, are loving it; there appears to be a big convention of academics gathered in a large lecture theatre to see the first pictures coming through of what looks like a stone snowman, albeit 18 miles wide.

But for me, science is not enough, unless it goes hand-in-hand with storytelling. They are two sides of the same coin and complement one another as we continue to explore and push out the realms of what is the known world. So much so that maybe, one day in the future, there will only be the known world.

Merge in Turn

Day 16 - 09:17, 16 January 2019

I came down to the Water today as they were setting up temporary traffic lights at the bottom of the hill. A contraflow is in place on one side of the road and I am interested to see the different approaches that drivers take when confronted by it. There appears to be two. The first approach is - as soon as you see that your lane is about to close, signal and wait to move into the remaining open lane. However, the second approach is - to see said drivers wanting to merge into your lane and drive straight on, ignoring them, speeding up where possible, just to make sure. As if by not looking in their direction, they are not there. The result is that there is a huge backlog, followed by a section of the road where there is an empty lane.

Can it really be so difficult to merge in turn? It's not as if those planning to turn right were trying to do a fast one, ignore the signs and then try to force their way into the other lane at the last minute. They were trying to do the right thing, but it seemed that their counterparts did not want to reciprocate. Are we really so caught up in our own worlds that we can't afford the few seconds it takes to show compassion for others, without it being seen as some sort of affront on our personhood?

The seasons seem to be better at it. They just get on with it. I am very aware this morning of spring beginning to merge with winter. Although less apparent by the river, the walk down the road is peppered by close-to-bloom snow drops, buds on bushes and trees, and the re-emergence of weeds in gardens. Maybe, however, their merging in turn is premature. A cold snap is forecasted to last into next week. Can nature survive its own vagaries? Only time will tell.

It's All in the Detail

Day 15 - 8:30am, 15 February 2019

I make it along to the spot twice today. Once in the morning on the way to work and once on the way back from the supermarket to return the out-of-date ready meal that had been delivered a day too late. I had been prepared to be challenged or at least questioned. Instead, the employee manning the customer service desk apologised profusely and refunded me without question, promising to speak with the packers regarding the matter. I then feel guilty for pointing out what must have been an easy mistake to make. I enjoyed then taking a second pause at the River. It looked the same as this morning, only lighter, and so it is easier to make out the smaller details, such as the dead scrub on the little island around which the water is channelled as it comes under the bridge.

The big detail that has changed since I started the blog is the 'X that marks the spot' from which to take my photo has been renewed. As posters go, it is fairly insipid and had I not known that it replaced a slimming club poster, I would struggle to know what it was for. One half is taken up with what looks like a stock photo of two or three women sitting around having a chat. Now, it is 20 years plus since I have been to a slimming club, but I doubt very much that they have changed this much. For a start, nobody looks overweight on the poster, and they are all laughing at some hidden joke that is not apparent to us onlookers. I think they may be eating and drinking, but they could just as easily be advertising a kitchen as a great place to have a cup of coffee and a natter with your mates as a weight management initiative. The other half of the poster tells me where to find my nearest WW studio. The location follows in a highlighted box, which means the detail that stands out the most on the poster is the address of the meeting. There is no explanation of what WW is or why it is something that I should consider. As details go, I would have thought it was kind of crucial.

Made You Look

Day 14 - 8:12am, 14 January 2019 

I'm slightly later in setting off for work today, and I notice a big difference in the light, though not as much as the image might suggest - Apple very thoughtfully asked if it could sort out the lighting on the photo for me and, though slightly affronted to have been judged by my phone, I agreed. (Particularly harsh, given that I was had just worked out how to switch motion off.) And so dawn is magically transformed into bright daylight.

And there was another thing that happened later that brightened my day, this time no technology involved. Making my way to the collection point in Marks & Spencers, an assistant is carrying a mannequin up the escalator toward me. Nothing unusual about that, perhaps, but the fact that she is carrying the full-length model at waist height means that it towers over the shoppers on the escalator, who being ahead of the mannequin are none the wiser of its presence. It is made all the funnier because the dummy is slung across the assistant's shoulder facing away from her, so it looks like a fireman's lift gone wrong or as if she is about to toss a caber. Either way, it is looking fifty-fifty as to whether the assistant and the mannequin make it up the escalator in one piece. 

They do and I catch myself thinking, I like that dress it's wearing. Then, I wonder if I would have even clocked the mannequin had it been stationery. Carrying on, two of the dummies on display in the lingerie department are in yoga poses. I notice the first on the way up. The figure is in tree pose and I envy its alignment, but I am more taken by trying to work out how they put the model into such a pose, and hardly register the clothes being modeled. I do not even notice the second plastic dummy until I pass it again on the way down and this model appears to be in a deep warrior two-like pose. I care even less about what this one is wearing.

Instead, I can imagine a whole viral campaign - store assistants filmed criss-crossing shop floors carrying their artificial partners over their shoulders. It would certainly catch your eye.

Winter Blues Eat the Day Away

Day 13 - 2:40pm, 13 January 2019

Quick photo stop today on the way back from the supermarket to make sure we get home in time for delivery of the online shopping. (I know, huh!) Hubby and the boys head for the car to drive home with the boot full of plastic storage drawers and I walk round to the spot on my own. The car pulls up ahead of me and I get into the free space at the back.

The rest of the day does not go to plan. Nothing goes horribly wrong or indeed happens that cannot be fixed, but my mood is meh and I achieve nothing that I had intended to. So I give in and accept that some days you just have to make like the river and let it all flow over you and be gone.

I Can See a Rainbow

Day 12 - 11.03am, Saturday 11 January

I see my first rainbow of 2019 today. I notice it just as Little Miss is careering into me with her pram. This distracts me sufficiently for my indignation to have dissipated before I have the chance to admonish her.

The rainbow is fragile. So much so that the fragments that are showing are barely visible even for those like me that are actively looking to trace its contours. It continues to fade in and out of consciousness on the way down the road, an iridescent heartbeat.

Little Miss does not notice it, she is too busy commenting on everything and nothing to look upward.. Even when its outline becomes firmer, she is oblivious to it; it seems to be a secret message that only I can see - an upside down smile encoded in the sky, all the while hidden in plain sight. Rather like a Where's Wally? book that nobody else is reading.

The funny thing is, I see neither the sun nor feel the rain. It just looks like a grey, nondescript sort of an afternoon. Nothing special, neither here nor there. Yet here the rainbow is.

The pram is really too small for Little Miss. She has not taken it out since she was about five years old and now she is nearly eight. She has to stoop over it, which makes the pram difficult to steer. I wonder what prompted her to dig this particular toy out the corner where it has long since been abandoned. It is a blow, because I have been mentally assigning it to the charity shop pile for at least the last month. But for these few moments of precious mother-daughter time, the cluttered corner of the dining room seems a small price to pay.

The River Twists and Turns

Day 11 - 8am, Friday 11 January

I leave for photo-taking/work, having heard Andy Murray's press conference in which he tells the world of how bad his hip pain is and how it is likely to bring his playing career to an end even more abruptly than he expected. It is a sad time for him, and no doubt for many others who hold him in high esteem, but Andy's ability to come back from defeat will no doubt help him to re-direct his energies and re-invent himself.

In this respect, he is no different from the rest of us. As the terrain changes, so must we. We have to adapt continously, not just to survive, but to thrive. For all our intention-setting, goals and plans, we cannot predetermine the path we will take through life, even if we can influence certain outcomes by our attitude, focus and by taking concerted action toward whatever it is we have set our heart on. Life will always throw us curve balls. And so we either need to be fast and get out their way or smash them out the court. 

I sincerely hope Andy makes it to Wimbledon, as he intended. It feels like it would be a fitting tribute and a rather graceful ending to this chapter of his life.

In Which Somebody is Left Behind

Day 10 - 8am, 10 January 2019

I make it out of the house this morning with barely enough time to take my photo, it is going to be tight. Maintaining a brisk pace, I decide to cross over at the pedestrian crossing so as to pass the bus stop on my way there. The next bus is not due for another 10 minutes. I decide I do have enough time and proceed. I don't hang about, which means I miss catching a passing train in the image.

On my way back, I check the bus tracker again. Six minutes have passed. I now have to decide whether I stay at this bus stop and catch the bus from here or whether I stretch out for the next stop. The second option comes with the added incentive of perhaps being able to catch the express bus from there, which should shave 10 minutes off the journey. I decide to go on, surmising that if I walk quickly, I will have a fair chance of catching the express bus and if not, there will still be other buses following shortly after that will get me to work on time.

I get to the next bus stop before the buses do, which gives me a sufficient pause to check the tracker. The 44 is showing as due, but the X44 must be running late because it is not due for another nine minutes. I decide that as there is no guarantee that there will be space on the X44 and it is unlikely to save me much time anyway, I will take the 44.

I board the bus, which is busy, but I manage to find a seat at the front upstairs. One stop on and there are no further seats available upstairs, forcing people to stand downstairs. At the next stop, two people get off and after letting two others on in their place, I hear the bus driver say, "Sorry, I'm full up." I smile to myself as I think what a curious turn of phrase. Not, "the bus is full," but me, I am full up. I, the human, do not have the capacity to take on any more.

The one woman who is to be left behind is not happy about this. So she tries to cajole/badger/shame him into letting her on. He does not budge and repeats he is full up, before closing the doors and driving on. Whereas most families tend to abide by the spirit of ohana - and the idea that nobody gets left behind - the driver does not have the same freedom. He has to make a choice based on whether or not it is safe to let people onto his bus, and when he deems it is not, he has to make the terrible decision to leave somebody behind.

I feel sorry for the woman; the driver's decision obviously impacts on her, perhaps considerably, given her obvious frustration. She may miss an important engagement now or if it makes her late for work again, it may turn out to be one time too many. It reminds me that you never know what the ramifications are of the decisions we make.

It was a simple decision, rather tiny in the grand scheme of things. As small, perhaps, as my decision to take this bus and not wait for the express bus. If I had waited, she would now be on her way, but that is not something I could have known or would have thought to consider at the time. Yet, our lives are crammed full of these micro decisions, perhaps even to the extent that we are even unwittingly ruled by the littlest decisions of others.

And, funnily enough, when I get off the bus, the X44 overtakes me, meaning had I taken it, I would have arrived sooner than I did, albeit only slightly so.

Normal Service Resumes

Day 8 - 9:41am, 9 January 2019

Back to school day! Meaning normal service can resume as we switch back into our term-time routine. Little Mr gets up first, dresses himself and switches the TV on. I get up, spend overly long in the shower, then combine pack lunch making with breakfast duties. Little Mr is sent upstairs to "gently" wake his siblings. Little Miss appears and heads straight to the sofa, where she makes herself comfy. There is no sign of Little Master.

I check school bags and then go in search of middle child. He has gone back to sleep, but with a little coaxing and after I agree to search for the requisite soft toy, he too comes downstairs. I ask Little Miss for the third time to put on her clothes. Daddy takes over and seems to have more joy with her because the next time I return to the room they are all dressed and (more or less) ready to head off to school. So we accomplish school drop off on time, with their school bags full and their glasses on - always a bonus and certainly not a given.

Returning home, I fish out the leftover croissant from the fridge for breakfast, collect my phone and head down to the Water to take my daily snap. Without any conscious effort on my part, I notice my breath has slowed and deepened. It is beautiful, as is the freedom to linger here longer than the task requires, until the need to pursue the mythical completed to do list compels me to move on.

Seeking out Life

Day Eight - 12:55pm, 8 January 2019

Arriving much later today, the Water of Leith is the busiest I have seen it this year. There is a group of walkers collecting outside the visitor centre and a mother and two young children walking along the main road in front of me. The boy and girl are peering intently into the water, hoping loudly for fish. They are disappointed; again, loudly. Their mother chivies them and they move on. I continue to look, scanning the river banks for signs of life. I don't see anything either, though I can hear birds above me. 

So I take my picture and return home, where out of the sleeping bag on the sofa creeps a child whose resolution has been to enjoy every minute of the last day of his holiday, which seems to involve not getting out of his pyjamas. But with a play date impending, he springs to life, leaving me thinking everything is right with the world.

Seeing In the Dark

Day Seven - 8:01am, 7 January 2019

When I said yesterday that it wouldn't be fully light before I went to work, the truth is that it was still dark, despite my not getting there until 8am. My poor little mobile struggled to cope with the lack of light, so you will have to excuse the image. I bought a secondhand iPhone afterward, so it will be interesting to see whether or not the successor can produce the goods. (My son is definitely delighted to be inheriting the older model, but there again I don't think he wants his own mobile for its camera!) 

In an odd sort of way, though, I am kind of fond of this picture. The trees and the bridges are still distinguishable and there is an interesting pink tinge to the photo, whereas all I could see this morning was darkness. It's as if looking back with a little perspective, there is suddenly something there to see that I could not see at the time. Maybe we are never truly in the dark, after all.

Doubts Emerge

Day 6 - 11:10am, 6 January 2019

Walking to the river, the enormity of a year's worth of visits hits me. I am back at work tomorrow for the first time this year. I will no longer have the luxury of spare time to come down here and take a photo at my leisure. I will have to make time. It's not even that it is in the right direction for work, it will mean coming out of my way. I wonder what will be the point. If I come before work, I will need to be here before 8am - not yet fully light; if I leave it until after work, it will be closer to 7pm and fully dark. Tomorrow shouldn't be so bad, the kids are not yet back at school, so the only pressure is on me to get myself out in time. Thursday will be more of a challenge, when all of us must be ready in time. But I am getting ahead of myself.

I pause my thoughts while I take the photo, framing and freezing the scene on the screen. Putting the phone away, my doubting continues. Why then am I doing this? What is its purpose? What can I hope to achieve? Is it finding myself? Or is it just 15 minutes out of my day? Is it selfish, when the days are rushed and there is no time, for me to be coming down here to a river that doesn't care whether I come or not? The river flows on regardless, day after day. Perhaps that's its appeal. It does not expect anything of me, it doesn't answer my questions or even reflect back to me, it is just there.

I return home my questions unanswered, waiting to see what tomorrow brings.

Never Green

Day 5 - 10:15am, 5 January 2019

Today, while I stand on the bridge, the detail that stands out most for me is the bowling club's lawn next door. It catches my eye because it is SO green, green to the point that it looks unnatural. In the middle of the winter, where the keynote colour of the river and its surrounding banks is muted brown, then its luminosity feels out of place and season. 

But bright as the lawn may be, it cannot upstage the Water, the gentler hues of the flowing water having a hypnotic pulse to them that brings my eyes back to it again and again. I like to think that I have something in common with the river, a shared affinity. I am not loud, I am not bright, but I hope that in being who I am, my natural colours have their own charm and their own special purpose. May I, at the very least, wind my way through the environment in this quietly confident manner, unperturbed by the super-charged personalities who seem at times to overwhelm me. I can, and I will, stand my own.

Finding A Way Through

Day Four - 2:17pm, 4 January 2019

As I approach the spot today, I am faced with a dilemma. There are two people on the bridge looking over, and one is standing right against the slimming club advert. Do I: a) stand on the bridge and take the photo from a slightly different spot, b) carry on past them, walk round the corner for a bit and hope they go by the time I return, c) turn around and come back later today or d) only very briefly (and not seriously) considered I might add, push the lady out the way and take my picture from my usual spot. In slowing slightly, my dilemma solves itself. The no 34 bus approaches and they may their way to the bus stop to board. The bridge is mine!

The water appears to be flowing faster today. I love how it rushes under the bridge from the right and then as the two flows meet and converge, how quickly it becomes still again. It's as if the right side has been desperate to be re-united with her mate and as soon as she is she can be at peace.

I am NOT at peace. I am late to visit today because I decided to combine this with a trip to the shops to return items. Only I couldn't find the receipt and so I spend the next four hours trying to find it by clearing the mountain of detritus that has been accumulating between the bed and the bookcase. After four hours, with little mini outposts created round the house of objects to be returned to their rightful homes, I have had enough and I seek sanctuary at the Water.

But I know I must get back to it. I have come too far to cave in now, I must see the job through. Back in the bedroom, it is the first time in many months that there is no after hours assault course to be navigated to get to the toilet. But there is still no receipt. I give in and turn to clear the bed. On the bed is the first receipt I looked at this morning. Resisting the urge to dump what is on the bed back onto the floor, I look at the receipt again to see if it can proceed swiftly to the recycling bin. It can't, it has the very coat on it that I have been looking for. All day. I laugh, mainly to ward off any temptation to cry. 

After a day's tumult of self-loathing and despondency at how far from I have fallen from how I imagine it should be, it is not just a piece of paper I have found, but a way through. I have cleared a little bit of my soul and for this moment, at least, I am at peace.

A Walk on the Wild Side

Day Three - 9:15am, 3 January 2019

Slightly earlier start today. Uneventful walk along, where I am only aware of a few people out and about. However, the road is considerably busier, so much so that it is impossible to hear the running water until you actually stop on the bridge. Even then, each vehicle that passes temporarily drowns out the water. But the cars come and go and, in the fleeting heart beats in between, the water's melody is able to reassert itself.

Today's photo stop is a prelude to the main event. A walk up Arthur's Seat with family and friends. We take the car, parking up by one of the mini lochs. No sign of Nessie, but plenty of seagulls, frightened that the swan is getting too much attention (i.e. food) from the young families passing by. 

We wind our way to the summit. The cars are soon forgotten behind us and we seem estranged from the city over which we now tower. As we climb, a tourist passes us on her way back down to the gentler slopes, wearing a face mask. It seems incongruous, given the lack of traffic.

We all make it to the top. Whichever way you look, the views are fantastic, across Edinburgh and beyond. You forget what a privilege it is to live here, with nature on our doorstep. Here, nature is silent: the hard Ignatius rocks, the mud liberally spread across the side of this extinct volcano and the long grass that the wind has pinned flat to the ground appeal to our other senses. It is noisy nonetheless. There are more people up here than you think will ever fit the narrow summit. But somehow they do, calling to one another eagerly as they pose for selfies at the very top. Everyone seems happy and good-natured (if you excuse the pun), moving aside to let others pass on firmer footing.

From the accents surrounding us, it is likely that the photos that are being taken here today will, within seconds and thanks to social media, make their way across much of the globe. People from places we might never go to, might not even of heard of, are in this way unwittingly linked to us in this brief moment of time; who and where they are, we will never know. Yet, in liking or loving the contemporary snapshots, their online selves serve as many silent witnesses to our having ticked another item off our family bucket list. Perhaps, one day, if we are lucky, we will get to return the favour.

Hail, Fellow Pilgrims!

Day 2 - 2 January 2019 at 9:55am

As pilgrimages go, this daily trek is a short one - perhaps just over five minutes each way - but long enough to regret my decision not to wear a coat. I walk briskly.

Turning onto the main road, four Buddhist monks file out of the Dhammapadipa temple, which might go unnoticed were it not for the flagpoles protruding out of the front wall of the house at a jaunty angle, the large gold lettering pinned to the wall spelling its name out in Tibetan and English and the large Buddha statue holding court in the small garden. One day, I will summon up the courage to ask the monks if there is any significance to the burnt orange colour of the robes that peak out from beneath their heavy winter coats.

An advert for a local slimming club marks the spot on the bridge from where I take my photo. The invitation to change your life is temporarily obscured by my intention not to change, but to appreciate my life as it is. I take the photo and go, musing that the biggest change from yesterday is the addition of frost on the river's banks which is somewhat less than on the pavements above.

The monks are now hanging around on the other side of the road at the parking lay-by outside the pizza shop. All four have their mobile phones out, one pointing his toward the sky. I cannot decide if he is trying to take a picture of the canal bridge or is searching for a signal. They are well-wrapped up, as they generally are, with long coats and woolly hats, completely engulfing their bodies. One crosses back over onto my side and I realise they are waiting for a ride.

Almost immediately, and just as I am passing, a taxi pulls up and the monk gets inside, signalling across to his fellow monks to join him. They seem to be resisting his requests to cross the street and I turn back onto our road not knowing if they begin their pilgrimage from this side of the street or the other.

Does it matter? Probably not, but it seems somewhat funny: they probably crossed the street in the first instance to make it easier for the taxi driver to stop, yet don't then seem prepared to cross back over to save him the trouble of having to make a u-turn to collect the rest of them. I wonder why. It seems so un-monk like. But maybe their journey needs to start with a u-turn. After all, how often in our own journeys do we need to start with a u-turn in order to go forward.