I am just getting ready to take the dog out for her morning walk, a walk which I do pretty much every morning and have done for years now. As I looked out of the window the sun is brightening and the green stretches for miles..but it isn't just green. 

I was listening to a very complicated radio quiz last week which set students against dons, I didn't listen very long because I didn't understand the questions or the answers, but long enough to hear to be intrigued by one of the dons not because they got some answers wrong, but because they were obviously so embarrassed at getting wrong answers that they went to great lengths to protest or make excuses. If they had just stopped at a wrong answer it would have been so much better.

This weekend my daughter and I took a shopping trip to London, I know London  a little but not well and so rely quite heavily on a Maps app when I get there, but I was having a lot of fun using it to find the nearest coffee shop ATM and such like. 

This morning I was out with the dog thinking through my day and trying to decide what to have for dinner. I quite enjoy cooking but I don’t enjoy the thinking about what to have so much, anyway tonight is sausages and as I walked I thought about a recipe for a sausage casserole I might try. The reason I am even mentioning my families' menu is this, I was about to spend time and effort putting together this recipe for casserole when I knew that  those around the table would prefer something simpler and easier. The two ideas were equally nutritious so what was compelling me to put in all the extra when it didn’t really suit anyone. 

 The cover of the good food guide had a lovely casserole on it, by cooking it I was domestic goddess and I would look just like the confident accomplished woman in her confident accomplished kitchen and all would be well and happy, except that three hours from now I will be a bit more stressed and the kids will not be as obliging as I might hope.

Why do we try to be something we are not ? God accepts us  and surely that is good enough- sausage and baked potato it is then.

'Just as I am, Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;
Because Thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.' Charlotte Elliot

Last Thursday I sat in the garden with a cuppa very tempted to sow the rest of my seeds even although the packet advised waiting until the end of March. Yet it was so warm and Spring seemed to have arrived and what could go wrong. In the end I didn't and today woke up to a garden covered in frost. The people that write gardening books and advise on the backs of seed packets really do know what they are talking about.

I am writing this with a large lump on my head and I blame technology.

We have a very old cherry tree in our front garden which is just about to break out into the most lovely blossom and everyone who walks by admires it. However what we know is that the tree has some major problems. It is cracked through the centre, rotting and diseased and although it still produces blossom inside it is in pretty bad shape.

On Saturday I was lucky enough to visit the David Hockney exhibition in the Royal Academy, and I thought it was glorious. Most of all I loved that he had spent the time really looking and seeing the countryside around him and found beauty in what we often consider to be quite ordinary lanes and fields. 

I have just managed to break my good trowel in the garden trying to dislodge a buttercup root. Given that the sun seemed to be coming out and I had just bought some nice hand cream for gardeners, I thought I would spend a bit of time weeding and tidying up the garden after the winter. 

My daughter’s calendar for March says ‘Wear shorts and t shirts : regret it’  which makes me smile because the minute we have got rid of February I am tempted to open all the doors and windows, put away my jumpers and wear bright colours and as this week has classically shown  that has been a big mistake.

Winter will end when it ends, not just when it is the first of March.

Some years ago I had bought a new car due for delivery early March and could not pick it up because of the snow- quite ironic really because I had gone for a convertible and my romantic image of driving around in the Spring sunshine with the roof down was blown away by a foot of snow and icy roads.

I forget that sometimes we just need to let things happen in their own time and by pushing we can miss out on the here and now. So back on with the scarf and hat  for now.

“Be still, and know that I am God' Psalm 46:10