What is The Price of a Smile?

You don't need to say it, I just know. Go on, you missed me, didn't you! It's alright, I don't mind you saying so!

Enough of that. I am back in the saddle after a week away with the family and the wife's family in a wooded place without cars where food is costly and the coffee strong. I have cycled up hills, climbed unimaginable heights, spent so much time swimming that under this black shirt I still look like a flabby walnut, have eaten more food than Mr Creosote, slept more than I have in years and won an immoral amount of money at poker (imaginary poker, imaginary money, computer game on the gadget). All in all, a good week has been had, and as I sit here in the middle of my first proper day back, it is a clear blue day and the sun is bright and warm. Kids, I am on top of the world.

I have a choice. I could have written one of about eleven currently embryonic blog posts that clutter my blog-cortex. I choose not to, because I simply want to record how I feel being me in this moment. I think my choice was also made when I saw how many grumpy blog posts were in my Reader, and knowing that I am apt to collude and add to their number, have opted not to! As an aside, what a miserable whining lot us bloggers are at times?! Anyway ...

I want simply to say that I feel great today. I have over a hundred emails wanting something from me, but I don't mind. I have a couple of acute pastoral conundrums to wrestle with, and that is alright too. The garden has sprung into life and needs taming. The cars are be-speckled with the gloop of country roads and need cleaning. All this is just fine. Lent is fast approaching and I have to fully resolve how I will observe it - but that just doesn't seem to matter. I am feeling good, the world is bright, the colours are more radiant, I am capable of anything, nothing can stop me this day. In this day I have received so much already, and the price of a smile? Simply the cost of being glad for what I have.