charles barrow's writing

Back in February I wrote a post about preparing to move home, and making plans for the future. Well, what's that saying about God laughing while we make plans? As I was writing that, Covid-19 must have been in the news, albeit as a problem on a distant horizon, a problem that would surely never affect us here in England, but it clearly wasn't alarming enough for me to make mention of it, or think for one moment that it would affect the whole world to the degree that it has. I had no idea either, of course, that I'd lose my mum less than two months later. She was poorly, but she'd been poorly several times before and she'd pulled through. So circumstances change, and plans change with them. Back in Feb I was planning to find a new job, a new challenge to take my life in a different direction. Now I plan what I might have for lunch, what I could cook for dinner that would make a nice change. I plan to visit the supermarket, two days hence and remember the celery thi...

The weather has been so bad over the past couple of weeks, and there is always a temptation to search for signs that things will improve, and then to load these signs with a positive outcome. A silver lining, or a rainbow, will always do the trick, bring a surge of optimism. I'm moving, packing up my life, and moving back to the mainland. I've been living on an island for 9 years and it's time to head back to where my friends, my true home, and my heart reside. It hasn't exactly been a hasty decision, but I know that it's the right one. And now that I've pulled the trigger things will move quickly, and the upcoming weeks will be filled with planning, packing, and saying my goodbyes to the friends that I've made here. I'm optimistic about the future, things are falling into place, I've been watching for signs, and the weather is set fair on the road head. The photo is the author's own.