Sun coming and going between grey clouds. Cold at 4:30 p.m. on the allotments. Sheds, posts, planks, pallets and a blue water butt. Grass growing high on the uncultivated plot. The trees catching the afternoon light. Some plants wrapped in blue netting. Boxed beds in the foreground. Somewhere close a man is building a new shed. This morning I joined 10 other writers and we collected our scattered thoughts about 'multum in parvo'. Not just the motto of Rutland, but the idea of how even small things can contain many goodnesses. One of the remarkable things about looking closely at 'ordinary' things is that the world seems to get bigger and my own burdens become lighter. It is therapeutic: it puts my own problems in perspective. |