Post 1/2025 Goshen IN. What misery colds carry. Sniffles. Cough.  Blahs. Concerns. Is it really just a common cold or one of the other superbugs that have a thing for our airways?

Decaf tea with lemon and honey. Some OTC meds. No fever. Recovery seems afoot, even as worries linger. That’s my welcome to early January 2025.

Today, the fifth day of being under the weather, sunrays through the den window warm my body and spirit, encouraging a nap. With dreams of another winter/spring to arrive soon in Cornwall UK.

Getting to Cornwall

Marty and I will board a plane in South Bend, travel through Atlanta, arrive in London the next morning, catch the train to Carbis Bay and arrive at our rental flat at dinner time. (Friends have offered to pick us up at St Erth Station and take us to the flat. Bless them.)

We’ll have had plenty of tea, ginger biscuits, and other food during the five hour train journey and so will set about unpacking, probably take a short walk to the end of Headland Road to see St Ives in the distance, look out to Godrevy Lighthouse, across the Atlantic, breathe in the reality of being home from home.

Topics for Cornwall

The change in administration in the US will be a topic we need to address. If I can follow the advice of one of my former bosses, I’ll partially manage: “If you can’t say something good about someone, don’t say anything at all.”

I’ll talk about Jimmy Carter and how most of the country followed the law of courtesy and precedent and flew the US flag at half-mast through January 29. I’ll nod my head and listen to what friends have to say, acknowledging fears, worries, trends in which a coterie of elected and unelected people misuse money and power for less than noble ends.

We’ll talk about the wildfires in California. And the political discourse that hardly references the real culprit: climate change. Thank God for the helping hands of California inmates and assistance from Mexico and Canada in fighting the fires.

We’ll have numerous occasions to put the kettle on and delight in each other’s company. We’ll take our backpacks to shop for groceries, walk two miles on the Southwest Coastal Path to St Ives for the library and lunch at The Harbour Inn. On the way home we’ll stop at the Cornish Arms for a booking for Sunday roast after attending worship services at St Anta & All Saints.

Freshness lies ahead. We’ll say to each other, “Not only can we still do this, we’re doing it.”

A gift I received from niece Jan and her husband John, who spent Christmas Day with us, is the children’s book Roots of Happiness: 100 Words for Joy and Hope, by Susie Dent, noted as “Britain’s Most-Loved Word Expert.” Dent writes that we have many, many words for sad thoughts and emotions, but fewer positive ones. She is on a mission to bring lost positive words back into our lives. “Because research has proven that by having the words to describe happy feelings, we can feel that happiness directly.”

Samples: Quiddle. “To quiddle is to make yourself busy with little things as a way of avoiding the important tasks. There are many words in the dictionary and thesaurus that express the same idea of pottering about or wasting time. Some from the past include ‘picking a salad’, ‘spuddling’, ‘dawdling’, ‘slummocking’ and ‘moodling’.”

Scurryfunge: “To scurryfunge is to rush around, trying to tidy up before guests arrive.” Snaccident: “A snaccident is the accidental eating of a lot of snacks when you meant to have just the one.” Eucatastrophe:  “A eucatastophe is the opposite of a ‘catastrophe’ and means a happy ending.

2025: Keep on talking, walking. quiddling (aka dawdling) with a book, not ignoring negativity, but keeping to the positive side of what makes for and spreads happiness, joy and cheer.

Breath easy.

-John