tabula rasa

New Year's Day - those three words are as exciting to me as the first page in a new notebook...and I love notebooks, always have done..

These two are my latest - the one on the left was given to me for Christmas by Sarah. The beautiful bird designs are by a London artist called Daniel Mackie. I'm going to use it to write about my walks and bivvies. The small black book is a rather niche Japanese diary called a Hobonichi Techo. I used one all through 2018 to write about my daily life (briefly!) so I could look back and see what I'd done. At the beginning of each month there is  a page to write about what I'm looking forward to, so I've been filling that in today for January. 

I'm not making any New Year Resolutions. I think that January is not always the best time to start new things - the days are still very short and rather dark in Scotland, so I think that until light and life return properly to the world in March, we should be kind to ourselves (and others)and save the big challenges and new starts until then. Now is the time to plan, to think and  dream, to tell stories and to read them, to write in notebooks.

I did go for a lovely walk today, up the hill behind our house. The sun was low in the sky but bright while it lasted. I saw two deer on the top of the hill but otherwise all was quiet up there. Now I'm off to enjoy the warmth of the fireside :-)