Small Mercies

Whilst I loathe this dank, dark time of year with a total passion, and I feel like I am being slowly suffocated in the endless, endless hours of darkness, at least there are some small mercies to be grateful for.

Small mercy 1.  I live in the driest county in England - Essex - where, apparently, the rainfall is less even than Jerusalem and Beirut.  I gather from my poor family in Bristol that it has rained, sleeted, snowed etc etc fairly relentlessly there for days on end - with yesterday being so bad it was barely daylight all day.  Thankfully, here in Essex we had a cold but bright and sunny day.

Small mercy 2. The mahoosive Post Office queue on Tuesday - it was out the door and halfway down the precinct when I joined it - was much more manageable this morning.  I was very gratful for that small mercy I can tell you.  And on that note, I should add small mercy 2a - at least I'm still selling items on eBay and Amazon at a steady pace.

Small mercy 3. It's only six more days until we get to the shortest day.  Hoo-bloody-rah.  Even if we won't see any perceptible difference in the daylight for weeks yet, at least we know that technically the worst of the dark will be behind us.

Small mercy 4.  The winter flowering jasmine is beginning to blossom - those teeny tiny little yellow flowers are such a cheerful sight. 

I do realise that I'm lucky to not have anything really major to worry about - just this miserable time of year - so maybe that should be small (or even very large) mercy number 5. 

Comments

[Maureen]

Take heart: it's summer here and we have 13 degrees and rain forecast for the next four days!
The jasmine are a cheerful sight anytime, though:)

[Briget]

Some things are the same the world over at this time of year! The queues at our post office are halfway down the shopping centre aisle too, but at least we're in the air conditioning and out of the heat.

[Vix]

I feel your pain. I hate winter, those short grey days, the miserable faces of people battling to stay warm and sane on the run up to Xmas, the tripe on the tv...arghhhh!
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