Light to see by

 I remember my prayer partner Margery telling me that the daylight extends by twenty minutes every week after the winter solstice (here in England). She told me that before we had the internet, and I carried the nuggets of information tucked away safe in my inner archive as a talisman of hope.

Thinking about it today, I looked it up online, and read that English daylight increases by two minutes and seven seconds every day after the solstice, which is an extra hour of daylight every month. After the feast of St John the Baptist in June they start to ration it until by the time Advent begins there's hardly any left and we have to wait for Jesus to be born. 

So we're three weeks on from the year's longest night, which is forty-three minutes and three seconds more daylight and thank God for that.

I say "daylight" but the grey drear in England today has personality. 

Still, any daylight makes it easier to work, and live and write.

Patient friends who ask me hopefully how I'm getting along with the next Hawk & Dove book will be pleased to know I'm making progress.  

I've gone back to the way I wrote the very first story, just sitting down each day to see who was there and write down what they said and what they did. I want to get it finished and out before the xenith of the year at St John the Baptist's feast, because 2026 looks set to be another turbulent ride, and we could all do with any light held steady to show us the way; and that place, those monks, do that for me. I must alert the artists to do a cover drawing for me; I don't like to rush them, hatching a picture takes time.

So, back to work. Just waving to you and saying hello from England. x