Ribbon of Ice

Thanks for the kind words on yesterday's Layers. The consensus is that the name was actually a good one. I often find that when I'm tired and a little out of sorts my decision-making processes don't function very well. I dither around a lot, so even when I come up with the right title I'm unable to recognise it and have sufficient confidence in myself.

I should say here that I'm generally a pretty optimistic sort of person. When I'm a bit down I'm always aware of the cyclical nature of things and expect to come back up again quite quickly. Self-fulfilling prophecies can work both ways and I'm a great believer in the power of positive thinking. Perhaps we all have a kind of natural amplitude at which we experience life. For some that may be quite low, with minor highs and lows. Other people seem to make huge jumps from intense peaks to massive troughs. I am reminded of a quote from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, where he says, "The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain". That has always stuck in my head. I think because it contains a large grain of truth.

To get down to more mundane matters, I've been office bound today, fixing the inevitable problems that arise when we do an update. This codebase has got so damn complicated, and supports too many different applications for it ever to be a straightforward exercise. But I think all has been sorted now. It's been a long day, but I will get the train home feeling a huge sense of relief. Only time today to pop out for ten minutes at lunchtime to take a shot of the canal I've not used before. The canal here is indeed a ribbon of ice, but holes are appearing. I wouldn't fancy trying to walk across!