Lying low at night.

I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars. 

E. M. Forster 

Reading about some early flowers popping their heads out of the still cold ground made me suddenly wish very much for springtime and I decided to start looking for signs of them myself when I next take Tyke for a walk. There is a stretch of road with enough gardens in it to look for early life so that I may get some sense of hope that the season is near. I should, I hope, see some daffodils or crocuses  If not those, then at least little grape hyacinths. 

I know, I am an optimist and probably hope for too much, but I have a real sense lately that winter is coming to an end and that we have seen the worst of it, and it has not been all too bad. We did not truly suffer very much compared to what people had to go through in some other parts of the world. As far as winters go, this one was rather mild, although some skating on natural ice did take place, much to the joy of the many real enthusiasts who even dared to skate on thin ice and risk falling through.

 I am also very much looking forward to this coming day, which is of course Sunday and the day of leisure, although I am sure that I will find enough to do to keep me occupied and out of trouble, because a woman of a certain age should never have too much leisure time on her hands. It is a very fortunate thing that I have the animals to always take care of even when convention dictates that today is a day of rest. They are the replacement of the children I do not have around any more. 

I do in fact want to change the bed, because I am in need of clean sheets for the umpteenth time and that will mean that I will run another load of laundry though the machine. One of the sounds I really enjoy is the washing machine going through its cycles, because it makes me feel industrious, although I am not doing much of the work myself. I normally get a whole lot of satisfaction out of doing simple household chores because they are opportunities to be momentarily meditative, and hanging up the laundry to dry is one of them.