Perhaps this is tied in with the dreary wet weather out there today, but it has been ominously quiet around here. I don’t know what I prefer most really, perfect silence or the usual noise of this time of year. What is normal anyway? How much longer will this all go on for, no one knows and this is the frustrating thing about it all. If you have a deadline, a timescale, you can work towards it, know if to speed up, slow down, panic or relax. With a complete open goal post there are no boundaries, no finish line, no marked definitions on the ground. In our craft group this evening we are discussing the frustration of not being able to see a pack of buttons before we physically receive it from an online order. You think you are getting the right size and find out its a mixed bag of tiny buttons that cannot be used for the current project in hand. I had to laugh when I ordered and paid for 10 x 50g balls of cotton yarn and what should arrive but 1. You can’t always get what you want right at the time you need it most.

I received a request today for a personalised craft order which is for way in the future, but which made me smile. There will be new beginnings, new people to meet, places to go, meetings of friends, family and people special to us all. We will go back to what we knew, perhaps a little changed by all of this, hopefully with a new determination to not be so bogged down in the what ifs, the mundane, doing tasks we really don’t want to do. Perhaps we will see the value in friendships, tight hugs, kind gestures, groups of people with a common cause and instead of discarding those bonds, tighten them and not let them unravel. How long will this be? How long is a ball of string, but for now we just have to hold onto whatever and whoever is important.