My Ferrari just about made it through Christmas but this morning, I decided there were no longer any blooms worth keeping. It was time to say goodbye…

But as is the way with such things, as one flower dies, another blooms and the first of the paperwhites I set over water before Christmas was quietly shining there in the vase in the corner.

Whilst it has shot up and flowered, its siblings sit quietly on their marbles, growing roots but not much else for the time being. Never mind. Their time will come.

A close look in the garden reveals plenty more promise of good things to come

and indeed, some surprises too.

On this, the last day of 2018, I find myself reflecting on the season. I’m trying to finish my Christmas journal, reliving and enjoying some of those magical days all over again and smiling to myself as I do. It hasn’t all been a bowl of cherries of course. We’ve shared fear, anxiety and sadness with dear friends and we worry about others, some of whose lives will be very much affected by events in 2019. But this evening, we’ll sit and giggle our way through Dinner for One as we do every year and look forward to brighter days ahead.

With very best wishes for 2019, I’ll finish with a poem I came across this morning, written in 1911 by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

New Year

Mortal:
        'The night is cold, the hour is late, the world is bleak and drear;
        'Who is it knocking at my door?'

The New Year:
        'I am Good Cheer.'

Mortal:
        'Your voice is strange; I know you not; in shadows dark I grope.
        What seek you here?'

The New Year:
        'Friend, let me in; my name is Hope.'

Mortal:
        'And mine is Failure; you but mock the life you seek to bless.
        Pass on.'

The New Year:
        'Nay, open wide the door; I am Success.'

Mortal:
        'But I am ill and spent with pain; too late has come your wealth.
        I cannot use it.'

The New Year:
        'Listen, friend; I am Good Health.'

Mortal:
        'Now, wide I fling my door. Come in, and your fair statements prove.'

The New Year:
        'But you must open, too, your heart, for I am Love.'

Poems of Progress and New Thought Pastels by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
London: Gay & Hancock, 1911.