Restless Spring

Well, hello. Yes, I know, it's been a while. And really, it isn't spring at all, just yet. But this morning, as I sit here at the dining room table, enjoying a cup of coffee with Jim as we listen to Just a Minute on Radio 4, the sun is blazing through the window, and there are green shoots thrusting above the soil outside.

Another manifestation of early spring is this feeling of restlessness which has taken up residence inside me since the turn of the New Year.  The seasons change. There is political change in the air - I live in hope that there may be some new Green Shoots on our political landscape (see what I did there???). World-wide there is unrest.... perhaps nothing new there, but there do seem to be signs of a new engagement by people who are beyond tired and dissatisfied with the status quo and sickened of the rich and powerful riding roughshod over the disenfranchised, and the resultant poverty which is so avoidable if the world were a fairer, kinder place.

                                     Garlic braving the snow and ice earlier this year.

My own sense of restlessness is rather more amorphous; just that feeling that I can't quite put my finger on. Something waiting to happen, maybe. Some decision to make. A new direction to take. Additionally, there is an element of anxiety about this restlessness. Again, nothing that I can pin-point. But it is sometimes not a comfortable feeling.

                                                 Happier looking garlic this morning.

Mum falling over while trying to get her arm through the sleeve of her cardigan  - you couldn't make it up, could you - and breaking her wrist quite badly. She is in plaster (or rather resin, these days) and annoyed that it is hampering her independent mobility because she can't use her zimmer frame. But she rather enjoyed the trips to the hospital with me. Even, I suspect, the tragi-comedy of three medical staff manipulating her fracture while I wrestled with the gas and air on the other side, and mum struggled with her dentures and the gas and air pipe. Yes, we even laugh about that now. This event has rather brought back all the trauma of last year when she broke her hip, and the subsequent sad leaving of her home and going into residential care. It never pays to be complacent, and even though she is - in her own words - in a safe place, she can still do herself damage. It was noticeable, during the hours I spent in A/E, how many women my age were there supporting an elderly, injured parent.

So, I hope I haven't depressed you all with my meanderings. I'm not depressed. I'm just .... in waiting, I guess. Hopefully when whatever it is arrives , or occurs, it will be a GOOD THING!