Christmas is over, and again we travel back and forth to school, on dark early mornings and blue afternoons, with our books and pencils, skis and clothes, three pairs of mittens and woolly socks (just in case), lunchboxes and homework, messy hair and pale faces, coffee in a mug in the car, bags of shopping to sort out in a house cold from being empty all day (except for a sleepy dog and two kittens), the other cars sweeping past us, with raisin faces behind the wheel and dirt up the sides, and they look so miserable, a lot of them. But then, there's the songs, on the radio, they fill the car, and maybe they even fill us with the hope, and knowledge, or at least a faint memory, of leaves on trees and flowers on the sides of the road, of smells out there (and not the ones from the chimneys), of sounds of birds and insects, of sunlight and long days, and then, this time of year is only faint memory, a weird image of a strange and naked world, until next time.
And on it goes.

Current favorites: This lady, and this one too, oh, and this one!