I have been working at home today, writing a report for a client on a project finished in Christmas week. Tying off loose ends like report writing isn’t my favourite bit of my job. I like to go from the presentation straight onto the next thing but sometimes that’s not possible.

Today though, I’m thankful for it! I was able to wake with the rising of the sun for the first time since returning to work on Monday. That makes such a difference to how I feel about life. I’ve been looking at the weather forecast today to see if I can be certain of some time to spend in my garden over the weekend and noticed that over the five days of the long-term forecast for our area, there is a lengthening of the day by a whole six minutes. I know that may not seem much but it fills me with such joy and hope for the longer days of summer. Most people seem to get post-Christmas blues in January but I’m just so excited at the thought that spring is around the corner.

I woke to see this sight as we’d left the curtains on our bedroom window open (we’re not overlooked at the back of our house (top left window) – there’s 400 feet between us and the house behind and in between lots of big trees) to let in last night’s glorious moonlight so this was an absolute bonus – especially as we’ve been having vile weather lately so sunshine at all was a treat. I said to David ‘look at that beautiful sight’ to which he replied ‘go and get your camera then’. So I did and here is the result.

I love this room, the richness of the colour and the early morning light. I also love these photos – they were taken on our only trip overseas in the first three years of our relationship (for most of the time we’ve been too poor to go away). Well, in fact it was technically underseas anyway – we went by channel tunnel to Paris for three days in July 2001 to see U2 play. You may think that’s a mad thing to do because they played in London that year but it was impossible to get tickets for London – they went on sale at 8am one day, I got to my office so at 8am I could be sat at my desk pressing redial, redial to try to get through. I got through at 8.20am to be told they’d all gone. How much of a pain was that? These photos, one taken from the Eiffel Tower and one from the Sacre Coeur, were taken by David on that trip. Oh and by the way – it poured with rain for three days so our trip was a constant battle to keep dry and warm!!!

Anyway, I’m dedicating today’s photo to the gorgeous David (SG) because it was him that rekindled my interest in photography after a twenty-year break since my days of photographing rock stars at gigs. I’ve been singing Gabrielle’s Sunshine in my mind all day since taking this photo…..and here’s why

Sunshine through my window
That's what you are
My shining star
Sunshine
Making me feel like
I'm on top of the world
Telling me I'll go far

I think it’s kinda appropriate. I hope he doesn’t think this is just too cheesy for words – I don’t really care if anyone else does!