Never stop looking for the light . . .

IT’S all very well for me to go on and on about change (we must accept... etc — as in last week’s column) but do I practise what I preach? Not always.

I remind myself of one of those doctors who advises a patient about good health while

drinking and smoking herself silly. Or a famous chef too lazy to cook who scoffs baked beans out of the can.

Because last weekend it was hard to accept change in my own life. Christmas was always my mother’s favourite time — and there was no Mum. The places where she and Dad always sat, sipping buck’s fizz, seemed so empty.

Dear friends usually spend Christmas with us, but couldn’t come due to accident and illness. My son was sick with flu and my daughter and her two children very under the weather.

Determined, I ploughed on — but for the first time ever we didn’t bother to cook the excellent Christmas pudding I’d bought. It was all rather strange and a struggle not to feel down.

But I was immensely cheered by our marvellous King’s warm, compassionate and reassuring Christmas Day speech — absolutely pitch-perfect.

Wisely, he noted that the power of ‘light overcoming darkness’ is a theme of all beliefs. And it happens to be something of a recurring theme of this column too — the conviction that good will generally prevail in the end, while sadness becomes absorbed into life, teaching us so much along the way. That is how I usually manage to pull myself out of low moods.

I made myself remember that in May this year I was walking with a limp, suffering from psoriasis for the first time, and feeling totally exhausted.

By December — thanks to a weekly workout and a Pilates session with two different teachers — all that had changed and I felt in better health than in the past four or five years.

Yes, I found my lost mojo — and that’s just what I wish for you in 2023. Don’t stop looking!