Escaping the overload

We had a short but very welcome walk on Horsell Common today, the snow and frost producing some wonderful contrasts in the landscape with bright whites and a modicum of green and orange being the main theme.

I needed it. My brain was getting overloaded. I was having one of those days when the sheer magnitude of modern media was overwhelming me: so many books, so much art, so much television, highly acclaimed films in dozens of different languages - how on earth do you make a choice? Modern life is like the Total Perspective Vortex in Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. You can't survive staring at it for long without going mad.

Marks and Spencers didn't help. The Yoga Mama was successful in her quest to buy a coat but pre-christmas shops are also just too much. You can't wait to get away again to the relative safety of home. Apparently around a quarter of people get depressed about Christmas and find it has an adverse effect on their mental health. There really ought to be a vaccine. If anything else made a quarter of the population ill it would be declared a public health emergency. Personally I like it but only if I can control it.

We had a rather fab catch up with TGR in Canada tonight. She has had a horrendously busy time of it in her job of late and is enjoying a couple of days off. We talked about the fact that she has got her pass to do the 4,300 km Pacific Coast Trail next year, starting in early May. We are buying her a new tent which makes all of us very happy. As she herself said, it will be like taking a piece of home with her on her travels (it takes four to five months to complete). She will definitely be escaping the overload. People who have done it say that it's a great way of finding yourself. Bit extreme for my liking but what do I know? She is young and fit and just a little bit crazy - and she'll be home in time for next Christmas with plenty to spare.