It's been a funny few days - I've been anticipating again and filling brim-full of anxieties and fears in the process. I realise just how much my confidence about my abilities beyond these walls and my own little family has slipped away over recent years and all of a sudden I found myself about to start a new job with the feeling that I wasn't sure I was capable of it at all! I tried so hard yesterday evening to feel peaceful and calm, but nothing seemed to quell the feeling I had of having made a terrible mistake that was going to let people down dreadfully...

It was, of course, fine. I have a lot to learn - about how not to get wound up into such a state for starters, but also about little things like how to dress for work and still feel like myself, how to organise myself better so that there's quick and easy meals planned for work days, how to get us both up and sorted in the mornings without it feeling like a horrible rush... But it feels good. I'm over the dreadful hurdle of the first day, I'll have a pay packet in December and am earning the money that FB and I need, and it looks like it's going to be an engaging, challenging, interesting and worthwhile job. The world is good.

Beyond that, there are all sorts of thoughts and ideas, and this wonderful landscape to hold them, ground them (and me). Last night we drove home as the sun turned down towards a low bank of heavy black cloud that seemed to add a vast city-scape to the usually level horizon. The higher, paler cloud above was flooded with orange light so that the horizon turned into a sprawling black metropolis engulfed in raging fire... And then a bright sliver of moon hung in the little birch tree at the front of the house - FB called from his bedroom - he'd gone up to look for starts in the gathering dark - 'it's a moon, a moon, a moon!'. So excited! How wonderful this little boy whose face lights up because he's seen the moon hanging outside his window! I tried to photograph it, but it didn't work. I'll put it here anyway beause the sky is such a lovely blue...

I have thoughts I feel I shouldn't have. Or rather, little longings that I should not have entertained because they are not yet attainable... Thoughts about a bigger home, more children, about how a little passion really wouldn't go amiss... Push them away, push them away, all in good time...I love what I have, andit really is enough, and I am not ungrateful... Think of it as ambition... I am still, you see, sitting and waiting in that pumpkin patch!

And snow again, and more forecast - it feels very cold this evening, despite my layers. There were spectacular tales in the office today of how much snow there might be tomorrow (and a contingency plan to work at home for those of us who might not get through) and I can't help but feel a little excited at the thought of lots of snow - it is so beautiful and it does make the world an even more magical place...