Galilee

Heading up to Nazareth Village we witnessed the phenomenon of Israeli shepherding. Israeli shepherds lead their sheep and it is impressive to watch. The shepherd shown in this photo is actually an actor and the sheep didn't know him very well. Normally they follow their shepherd closely wherever he goes. Hence Psalm 21: The Lord is my Shepherd, he leadeth me. If you have ever felt coerced in life, this is a good concept to think about. Only the butcher uses dogs to drive his sheep in Israel.

Recalling summer

Alice sent me this wonderful poem about summer:

Mint

I am chopping up the last mint of summer.
It’s a ritual goodbye –
goes with sandals, bare legs, shorts and suntan lotion,
alfresco dinners and the candles burning
to a waxen stump
among the garden leaves.
Last mint on my fingers now,
the scent of it pushed through my hair
when I lift my hand
from a finishing touch to dinner.
Last ritual in a ritual,
and everything I’ve ever learned
seems to return
to the comfort and confines of cycles such as these –
how I am balanced on the last, sharp edges
of this pepper scent which I want to be everywhere,
holding it close
with every intensity I shall ever have,
and how I forget it, in the snow-filled silence
of my three-month-hence garden,
so I wonder to myself
Did I ever eat mint? Did I ever crush it on the circle
of this wide blue plate? Did I ever crave a summer,
long and green and full of this?
The mystery is
what we do with loves even as small as this –
how we learn to live with them,
how we learn to forget.

(R Seatter)

The night train from Paris to Florence

Plotting my summer holiday is proving as good as prozac for keeping spirits buoyant. It's the first real family holiday that my son and I will have together and I think it's really important to have a great, epic holiday. 3 weeks is about the right length. More than that and you get bored. Less than that and the brain doesn't have time to unfold, soak up the sunshine and expand itself.

This year we are hoping to stay in a cottage in Tuscany, hopefully joined by family and friends. I want to take the night train from Paris. That is proper travelling - a delicious gentle voyage. It's not like the screaming sleeper that runs from London to Aberdeen, where you wake up every time they cream round a corner. You wake up in Florence with Brunelleschi's Duomo glinting sublimely from behind tenement flats.

Of course, I should be finding the sunshine within. 'Here is where the birds sing, here is where the sun shines' (c.f. Room with a View). What I am really thinking of when I fantasize about a summer holiday is heaven, and the holiday will never quite live up to my high expectations. In truth, heaven is just next door; a glittering, joyous party being held very near, in a separate reality.

winter sun

There are two ways to cope with January blues: The first is to book a holiday to South Africa and soak up some lovely sunny rays. I did this when I was pregnant with my son and it worked a treat. A bumpy ride

This year I'm rather uncomfortable with the idea. Partly because of the threat of impending global warming floods, partly an allergic reaction to the drear of airport travelling, but ultimately a sense that there is something too extreme about being plunged into summer when your body seriously believes it should be slowing down for long winter nights, I just think it wouldn't be right to book a winter sun holiday.

But how to get through the dreariness of January?

Well, firstly study ">Roast Figs and Sugar Snow by Diana Henry. It is a culinary celebration of all things cold and wintry and I defy you to want a January summer after reading it. If the dark days are getting you down you could also get one of the lumie lamp range These clever lamps wake you up with a bright light that slowly comes on in the morning to simulate the sunrise. At night it slowly fades when you switch the alarm on which is a very cosy way to go to sleep. Even more effective are their desktop lamps. This year I'm going to enjoy the cold slow stillness of January and spend the time dreaming of my long summer holiday on an organic farm in Tuscany, and if none of that works I shall learn to tango.