Because today's grey

It helps to remember sunshine.

Flowers sent to me on my recent birthday.

Dust? Or just New Year's Eve?

Those of you who've read Philip Pullman will, of course, know what I mean...

I think this is amazingly atmospheric but somehow disturbing.

Photo taken at midnight, December 31st in Manila.

Christmas faces

There was a day last December my sisters and I cooked like the demented, and not because we were feeling particularly festive. No; my mother had arranged for a "feeding day" for the less privileged kids in the village and the big pot of pork stew she had painstaking cooked the night before had gone bad overnight. Plus the children just kept coming; from an expected 70, about 250 showed up! So into the pot went any pasta we could get hold off, to have enough; we cooked the macaroni; we cooked the spaghetti; we sliced and diced and sauteed and stirred until our arms ached.

And at the end of the day, it was all worth it.