Potted wisdom and new names...

The Potty family are finally back home, in freezing old London town. It's meant to be -3 degC tonight. Minus WHAT? We don't do minus figures very often here in the UK, as a rule, and in London hardly ever. We're not built for it. More to the point, we're not dressed for it. Still, any excuse for a tall skinny hot chocolate, I say.

Though actually, given how tight my waist-band is right now, there is no excuse currently good enought for a tall skinny hot chocolate, blast it. Of course there are plenty good enough for repeated assaults on the biscuit tin, but let's skate over that for the moment...

Husband, Boy #2, I and Captain Adorable travelled back from my parents' in Somerset this morning. I beg your pardon? Who's Captain Adorable? Oh yes, Captain Adorable, the son formerly known as Boy #1, but who has recently decided to answer only to the new name he has chosen. Not sure how that's going to go down on the rugby field in years to come, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it...

On a more serious note, we're fast approaching the end of a rather tumultuous year. I summarised it here at the beginning of December. I have to say that when Husband called me last January and told me he was one of the earliest casualties of the crisis in the banking industry, I certainly didn't imagine for a moment what would follow. I assumed that he would have few months off, we would get a proper holiday for the first time in - well, for the first time since he started in that world - and that he would be back in the thick of it come the end of the summer.

It hasn't worked out quite like that. Oh, he's been working yes, bloody hard, and sometimes even getting paid for it, but corporate banking life - and the security that comes along with the horrific hours and lack of family life - seems a long way away from where we are right now.

This last year has been a salutory experience, for both of us. For myself, it has helped me to focus on what's important. My Husband. My Boys. Our life as a family, and facilitating that. Being supportive, honest, and open, but not always saying the first thing that comes to mind. Having some place other than my home where I can achieve creativity (thankyou, Blog-land). Good friends and family who will help me work things through and never once say 'I told you so' - and being able to return that favour. Having a sense of Self, and staying true to that.

And most importantly of all, knowing what is right - and doing it.

In the front of my diary for 2008 I copied out two quotes from Marcus Aurelius. I'm about to transpose them into 2009. I'm human, I know that at times they will seem unnecessary and irrelevant, especially when I'm racing around trying to maintain my cool with Captain Anything-but-Adorable and his side-kick Boy #2 (aka Captain Cutesy-unless-things-aren't-going-his-way-or-the-train-has-fallen-off-the-track-again). But I'm hoping that, as in 2008, these quotes might inspire me from time to time, when the walls start closing in and life doesn't seem all that it might:

'Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.'

'Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.'

And since those are both quite worthy, here's one of my own;

'There are few situations in life that won't improve immeasurably with a bar of Green and Black's Chocolate in your hand.'