The Best Laid . . .

Today has not gone as planned, despite the enjoyably warm and sunny weather. The plans included lunch at a favourite country pub, for example, which didn't happen. The plans did not include calling out the emergency doctor, which did. Well, here's to tomorrow, so far as all that is concerned; let's hope for better things. Meanwhile, it's worth just making three observations, the first of which is the old saw that "life is something that happens to you while you're busy making plans." The making of plans fools us into believing that we can control events and even destinies; we can't, of course, though from time to time we may manage to impose some vestiges of order here and there.

But, secondly, when things do not go according to plan the events of life do still include blessings and benefits, and these are sometimes all the more welcome for being unexpected and maybe undeserved. There were quite a few bits of today that seemed to include no trace of blessing at all, and that I felt screwed up about, really - but not everything was bad or sad. In particular, and this is really my third point, even when things go wrong and are difficult and painful I find I am often lifted and warmed at heart by the kindness of others, some of them friends, some of them strangers, who just say and do the right things at the right time, and quite often are prepared to go the extra mile. They have been present today, and I am glad of that.

Finally, in the bright sunshine of today, my favourite spring flower (and Wordsworth's), the lesser celandine, has been quite beautiful, with sheets of glossy yellow to reflect the sun here and there along the edge of the wood. I think the name celandine relates to swallows, so this is a flower supposed to bloom at the time the swallows come. In reality it's in flower rather earlier, but on a day like this you know it won't be all that long before they are with us - and I am already listening out hopefully for the first singing chiffchaff, not here yet but surely not too far away.