So- today I am 43. Thanks so much to those who have sent wishes/cards/presents! I am a man blessed.

I share a birthday with some of my friends- Nick, Stacey and Stewart. And aparently Kim Jong-il, North Korean dictator. So best wishes to them all. I am not expecting a card from Kim.

And for those of a certain age-

(I was reading recently that tests have shown that kids who grew up watching Sesame Street out perform kids that did not in key indicators. I did not watch it as a child unfortunately- my mum thought that TV sent brains soft.)

Michaela and the kids bought me a days sea kayaking tuition! Which to some might mean they are trying to get rid of me- but I know better. It is something I have wanted to do for years. Can’t wait!

What will this year bring?

My friend Maggy gave me a book of Celtic daily prayer– and I read this-

We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide, and resist the terror of it’s ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanence, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity- in freedom, in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern. The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

Lord Help me now to unclutter my life

To organise myself in the direction of simplicity

Lord teach me to listen to my heart; teach me to welcome change rather than fearing it

Lord I give you these stirrings inside of me

I give you my discontent

I give you my restlessness

I give you my doubt

I give you my despair

I give to you all the longings I hold inside

Help me to listen for those signs of change, of growth; to listen seriously and follow where they lead

Through the breathtaking empty space of the open door…

Amen, amen.