Cruel Fate

I'm very conscious that while his Lordship and I have spent a wonderful Christmas and New Year happy and content on our own, and yet with social gatherings at times, there are others whose suffering is too hard to bear.

I have in mind one of our book group, whose son, a young, handsome, newly married vet, was in a car crash just before new Year and is lying in a hospital in Newcastle, barely alive, and, reading between the lines , with no expectation of life.

This is a friend who has not had her sorrows to seek in the past, and we feel powerless to alleviate her suffering now.
There can be no greater suffering than to have to sit at the beside of a dearly loved child and watch helplessly as he fails to respond.

To end on a somewhat brighter note, this was the sky at dawn this morning as seen from the Dower House patio through the branches of our felled tree, and heralding a mild, sunny day but with the portent of some rain later.

It's a day which I must treasure for being alive and well; you never know what fate has in store round the corner.