The sun HAS got its hat on!

Don't you just love it when the doom-mongers are wrong?!

First up is the weather forecaster on Thursday, who told me I could expect heavy rain again today. But as I write, I'm looking out my window at the blue sky and fast-scudding white clouds of a perfect autumn day ... well, HAH!

And just a couple of months ago, plenty of heavy-weight commentators were saying Obama couldn't win the US presidential elections, whether because of his race or because some other dirt could be dished that would spoil his chances ... well, HAH again!

And then there are those famous - or infamous - gloomy brickbats. Like the IBM chairman who, in 1943, so modestly speculated "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers". Or the DECCA music company executive who rejected the Beatles demo in 1962, saying "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out". Or - perhaps the most pessimistic prediction of all time - the World Health report in 1989 that claimed "There will be one million cases of AIDS in Britain by 1991". In fact there were around 8,000.

Why DO we seem to have got into such miserable habits? It's time for some more GOOD news stories! There are a few US sites, of which the best (by which I mean least schmaltzy and/or religious) seems to be http://www.happynews.com/, but I haven't found a British or European equivalent.

So here are my headlines... They're all TRUE, though it's just possible that not all of them made the national news.

• Mortgage rates now lowest since 1965!
  
• Youth rescues trapped dog by jumping in canal!


• Thief sends apology and £100, years after stealing cigs!


• "Tiggers Don't Like Honey" sketch fetches £31K at auction!
  

And if your taste for good news stories stetches as far as a willingness to listen to semi-amateur rock bands, then you might like to check out 'Canary Wolf' http://www.myspace.com/canarywolf . Their new song 'Credit Crunch' is at least as much about carrots as finance. As their lead singer says "It's not the end of the world, is it? There's benefits. We were all — myself included — spending money on things we didn't need".

They certainly know how to go-go with the flow!



Flow x

Remember hope, remember joy?!

We're living in weird times. All sorts of things seem to be teetering on the edge. I was going to say, balancing on some sort of threshold between bad and good, but it's sometimes hard to escape the impression that bad is likely to tip over into badder-than-bad.

Politically, socially, personally - and of course seasonally - it feels like things are sure to change, and as so many people seem to be saying at the moment, "Things will get worse before they get better".

Blimey!

If you've been listening to the UK news recently, you will have been fed a miserable diet of war, economic crisis, bank collapse, BBC presenter scandals, 'yob culture' and the 'youth problem', and you probably have indigestion by now. The chances are, aspects of your own life seem to echo these depressing headlines. My own tally of gloom this week includes a sore throat, a contract I didn't get, my thirteen year old son getting robbed, and hearing that a dear friend has colon cancer. Even the weather seems to be in on the conspiracy: we had a disappointing summer, now we're gripped by a grey, bleak autumn, and we have months of winter still ahead.

Rain or blizzard, trouble or collapse, unhappiness or total misery: these seem to be our doom and gloom options!

And yet ...

And yet, there are some signs of hope. Some of these are relatively small comforts - like the sun coming out this morning so that I saw a patch of blue for the first time in a week. Some are small but important - like the marvellous fact that my son wasn't hurt when his 'phone was taken, and we found him a new, better one on eBay last night for only a tenner!

And yes, some things - YAY! - are big, fat, juicy causes for hope. This week, as you will certainly know (unless you have been on retreat or held hostage somewhere very isolated*), America elected a new president who has inspired millions to vote who had never voted before, and who offers hope and a new positivity. Whatever we want to do or dream, Barack Obama says, "Yes, we CAN". My 8 year old heard his victory speech and said "that sounds like a poem" - and politicians who speak poetry are an excellent reason for hope, if you ask me!

Now, I'm a glass-half-full kinda woman. My occasional episodes of anxiety and depression (yes, I'm one of the one-in-four) have been stress-related and a reaction to horrible things - where anxiety and depression, frankly, were the sanest responses. But, generally speaking, I'm contented and cheerful, and I always prefer to look on the bright side of life.

But sometimes it's hard to be cheerful, amid all this doom and gloom. Sometimes it's hard to remember about the sunshine, and the blue sky, and (bloody hell, I'm beginning to sound like Fotherington-Thomas!) poetry - even the poetry of politicians!

Sometimes I need reminding about the good stuff.

So that's what this blog is all about: it's for silly stuff, stuff that makes me laugh. It's for beautiful images, words and sounds. And it's for serious stuff, ideas and thoughts that give me inspiration. But most of all, it's a record of my day-to-day attempts to remember hope and remember joy!

OK, so I'm not always so good at going with the flow (as kind friends sometimes remind me!) ... but meanwhile - oh yeah! - I'm determined at least to go-go with the flow!

Wanna come dancing with me?!

Flow x

*By sheep, say, in a small village in the Pennines with no digital TV signal and generally appalling telecommunications! ;-)