Roads to Joy

It’s been a busy couple of days, but mostly filled with increasing anxiety about the immediate future. Will the house sale go through? Will the anticipated surgery actually happen, for our own surgeon daughter, so she can keep working for the NHS? Will we get everything ready for the imminent arrival of family? Will there be enough ingredients to prepare the festive meals? Will the heating oil be sufficient to get us through this season and on to completion? Will the hot tub be presentable for a lovely soak? Some worries are less pressing than others, of course.

And then, of a sudden, like the sunburst through clouds that brings a rainbow, joy.

Critical deadlocks mitigating against the timely sale of our beloved home appear reconciled. Tomorrow’s surgical list and the availability of a hospital bed both look more promising. Top-up shopping helps the cook’s mind to rest easier, and the evanescent rainbow in Sinderhope, so close it seemed you could reach out and touch it, shimmered with refracted light. Heating oil levels look to be okay, and the hot tub is cleaned and filling again as I write. Even the garbage bins at the bottom of the track have been trundled away to the old Sparty Lea bridge for the fortnightly rubbish pickup, and I skipped back to our waiting car with that chore ticked off.

Rain again will surely come, but for a moment there’s respite enough to raise our hopes for fruition. New worries are also just beyond the horizon, for now, but with a little hope we can face them with that extra bit of bravery.

The rainbow, momentary wonder between the clouds, infiltrates into our hearts and minds.