Oops – looks like I just left the building for a while but here I am again.

I feel like a bottle of lemonade that has been opened, half-drunk and left in the fridge a couple of days - a bit flat, rather cold and not at all appealing. I am lacking my usual bubbles and sparkles – don’t know why but perhaps a combination of Christmas, PMT and low light levels. In fact a lot of people I have spoken to recently have said they have felt a bit flat this year – and they can’t all have PMT. Well the men might of course. I know it has not been a brilliant year for many but I can’t use that as an excuse because although it hasn’t been amazing or astounding or anything it also hasn’t been bad either.

The relentless moving of the finger that writes on the pages of life’s book, yes that’s the rub. Having no small children in the family now means we can no longer appreciate it through the eyes of the little people with all the magic and fairy dust. That said my girlie even at 18 manages to get as excited as a much smaller version of her used to do so all is not lost – she is the bright sparkly thing that sweeps us all through the festive gloom!

Oh dear I sound so maudlin but I don’t feel sad particularly – just not bouncily happy either I guess. Just a wee bit nothing at the moment.

I have tried to keep writing list s of all the fun things in prospect for the coming year, holidays and driving lessons……..and a new kitchen. It sounds exciting doesn’t it but it isn’t, it’s keeping me awake at nights trying to create the ideal kitchen and I can’t get it right. I lie there turning over and over, not tossing much but lot’s of turning, and I keep moving the cooker and the fridge and the sink around in my head until they are all whirling in ever increasing circles.

It’s all too much!

I was having a chat with someone the other day – oh I know, that’s like, shock, wow! I have at least one conversation every day of my life; even if it’s just with the cat – and you’d be amazed how much she can say when she is hungry.

No, this was a real conversation. And it made me think about stuff.

She – for it was a female person – was saying that she knew just enough about the people she had just started working with and wasn’t really wanting to get to know them more intimately. It was one of those moments when you see yourself as you were a few years ago and hanker for a simpler time.

Many years ago, in another life – or so it seems! – I went to a meal with a large group of people. It was a sparkly evening in my recollection and I had the good fortune to sit opposite a guy who was very enjoyable company. I remember laughing a good deal, feeling a real buzz from the rapport of my table companion, and I myself felt vibrant and not unattractive. Some years later however when I learned of the true nature of the relationship between the guy opposite and my immediate female neighbour at the table it stripped the evening of some of it’s gloss. I realised that not only had I not contributed in any way to his good humour and that my presence was an irrelevance but in having arrived slightly ahead of her I had taken the place opposite him which she would have had and therefore I must have been something of a disappointment! A pleasant memory turned into a hollow nothing. It was like being given a shiny penny and then discovering it to have absolutely no value.

While I was talking the other day I saw how much my appreciation of bright penny moments has lessened because of knowing the world a little better.

Having felt a bit of a misfit all my life, and having to shave off a few of my corners to fit into the round holes, I have seen acquiring deeper knowledge of people as a form of gaining acceptance in a world that still, frankly, puzzles me. But all it is really doing is tarnishing my own brightness and dulling my own pleasure in life.

I have a jar full of bright pennies. I really don’t want to get them all out and inspect them to see which are flawed and worthless so I shall leave them where they are and believe, deep down, that at least some of those bright pennies are actually worth ten time their face value. I shall henceforth make more of an effort to preserve my innocence and although it is not possible to un-know people it is sometimes politic to forget!