I have decided I have much in common with one of my solar panels. When the day is bright, I am energetic; when it is dull, as it’s today, I fade. When I check the energy production on my panel online record, it is almost an escuse to drink coffee and read all day. Not possible. I still write and research and work, but it takes much more effort when the sun hides.

Others must feel the weather is an excuse to hibernate as there was very little company on the beach this morning–one man with a lively Irish Setter puppy but otherwise just a Merganser, a seagull, my Minature Schnauzer and me. The weather was what I think the poetic Irish call “soft” and what my less poetic Scots ancestors called “grizzling”: grey sky, grey sea and light rain. Warm, though. There is at least hope in the air for an early spring. Primroses are blooming, the crocus pushing up about two inches, snowdrops nodding away at the edges of gardens.  I’ll play close attention to the groundhog tomorrow and hope for a prediction of a quick return of daffodils and warm weather.