Tuesday, January 06, 2015

The heart of the matter

We're nearly a week into January now so the weather remains as big a factor of daily life as it is at any other time.  Not that we've had too much notable weather, but what little we're having is not very pleasant.  The weekend wasn't very nice at all as it rained most of the day on Saturday, with the temperature dropping all the time so that by the end of the morning the rain was about as cold as it can be and still be rain, as opposed to hail or snow.  Then the temperature dropped further overnight so we had a few degrees of frost by Sunday morning, which led into a day of pretty much freezing fog throughout, as the photograph in the second paragraph, which I took early afternoon at the July Course roundabout on my way back from the At The Races studio.  The sun was forecast to appear, but the fog managed to keep it at bay, and keep the temperatures down at the same time.

But that's what we expect at this time of year - and give it another couple of months, and we should be turning the corner into spring.  Will we be off the mark for the year by then?  Well, hard to know (we didn't get off the mark last year until July) but it's not impossible that we could get off under way tomorrow, with Magic Ice(whose ears can be seen on the frost canter on Sunday morning in the first paragraph) running at Kempton.  I'm very happy with her going into the race, but the twice I've run her in the 15 months she has returned, she has each time not finished her race off, and has come home a lot less chipper than she went.  So obviously tomorrow I won't be holding my breath - and I won't be surprised, either, whatever happens, whether she wins easily or finishes towards the rear.

On another subject altogether, I'm very pleased, Debby, that you have put the last chapter on Jason's memorial Facebook page.  Once again I find myself no longer able to post comments on my own blog (hard to believe, but true - and having no idea what my password is doesn't help, so I suppose that I should just be thankful that I'm still able to write these posts) so I'm replying in this chapter.  What I was even more pleased about was to read about how Jason had told you that he felt that he'd made the most of his life.  My late stepmother Meg (who, like Jason, died far too young) by her example made me realise that we all have far too short a time here, but that that's not the issue; that not dying is not an option, and that the only choice we have is whether to make good use of our limited quota of time or to waste it.  She chose to make the best use of her brief allocation, and Jason too always struck me as someone who wasn't going to let his quota go to waste either.  And that, really, is all that matters.

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