SILVER TURNS GOLD

The clouds are moving like the ocean tonight - a sort of huge mass of grey, gently rising and falling as the world beneath sighs itself to sleep.

I'm in my usual spot, out in the twilit park with the rustling leaves and the cool, still air. I really do love the way the breeze shakes the leaves inside out, turning them silver. They ripple like the sound of a waterfall.

Lots of positives today. My Mum's found a use for my old room, which means I can't go back, and that didn't bother me even half as much as I thought it would. In the process, she found some of my old diaries which are hilarious. I might post a few entries some day.

I also bought a tea strainer and put it to good use with a pot of Whittard's Darjeeling. I can stop using the sieve, and my rice will stop tasting of tea, with any luck.

Paul and Heather gave me a brilliant picture so I hung it up today. It's a map of the world filled in with music scores and notes. It reminds me of what I'm called to do. Even when that seems unlikely or unpopular, it is still there, calling out to me. It's hanging above the piano.

It's properly dark now. All the hand-holding, dog-walking couples have gone home and their dogs have scampered after them, having sniffed my shoes. There are moths flapping about and I'm sure I saw a bat a few moments ago.

It's been good, Positivity Week. I have the best garden imaginable to collect my thoughts in at the end of each day, and sitting out here most evenings has been brilliant. Who wouldn't want to live next to a park?

As for the positivity, well I've learned a lot. It starts out to be difficult, then it gets easier. Then it becomes a sort of culture, where your eyes are trained on the silver linings and everything else goes out of focus. At least I hope so. That's why it doesn't really end, Positivity Week, it sort of seeps into next week and then the week after that.

Night clouds are beautiful; blanketing the valley of scattered lights and whispering trees, shifting and moving across the horizon with the last few rays of sunlight painting their curled edges.

I think sometimes, when you search for silver linings, you really do discover that they were golden all along.