Another morning. I made it. Life shifts and changes gear once again and there is a pale sun shining on the frost damaged garden. We lost a row of potatoes, most likely. The wisteria looks like a badly hung curtain in need of a wash but blossoms are opening up in between. I just did my silly duck walk down to the river and back. I am alive it seems.

Thank you all for your kind comments, you are wonderful. 

Nights always shift everything out of proportion and no, it doesn't help knowing how this has been researched and confirmed by neuroscientists. But once in a while, I think I need to face the darkness with its terrors.
I mean, it's not as if I have much of a choice. My mother was an addict, she spent every night fighting her demons with whatever came in handy. When I was 13 and nervous about a school exam, she slipped a valium into my hand the night before, this will help dear, take it at breakfast.  She was never up when we left for school and I forgot. It only happened once. A while ago, I asked my siblings, did she ever offer you anything as well? It was a difficult conversation, fraught with jealousy and despair. As adults, we think, how dare she. As her children, we think she cared and why her, why did she not offer me one as well and all that fierce competition for her tiny morsels of affection.
We will never speak about it again. But at least that memory is no longer one of my night time terrors.

But there you are, this road is not open to me and so I work my way through my stash of distraction methods and valerian tea if the darkness roars too loudly. It all sounds so easy now as I write it down. It is not. As you know.

Yesterday was Earth Day. Which really is silly because, every day is earth day. We just forget. It's easier. I saw R off to our local march for science. He rarely does go for the crowds but this matters. Later, I met him halfway when he cycled back home along the river in the freezing cold wind.

And here is a short video of Emmanuel de Merode, director of Virunga National Park (Republic of Congo - a place I want to visit in my next life) training for today's London marathon where he is running right now to raise funds for this amazing sanctuary.




If you have the time and want to watch this documentary about Virunga, I think it's still on netflix.