Today should be (and is really) one of the happiest days of my life. After eighteen months up for sale, David's house has finally sold - he's got the money in the bank!

Yet here I am, cold to my very core and feeling decidedly miserable on Blackwater station where a sorry string of events meant I spent a very long time waiting for a train this morning (and was subsequently an hour late for work). It was zero degrees this morning and there was thick ice on the car and on the station. It's not possible to DO anything there - it's an unmanned station and there are no nearby shops with the promise of steaming coffee or warm cakes - just desolation. There is no shelter (other than a small glass porch) and nowhere to sit so I was idly standing waiting for the train, heavy bags over shoulder when I saw this railing with the ice melting.

You know how the mind wanders across subjects like snails in the rain....well I got to thinking about how much my life has changed in recent times. Four years ago, I thought I was destined to live for the rest of my life in a loveless (though companiable) marriage and that my career would be the thing that drove me on each day.

Today, though, however cold, my life couldn't be more different. I now love someone who, in return, loves me. My career? Well, all I want to do these days is to find ways of spending more time at home with David, our gang of animals (however thuggish some of them - mentioning no names Milly! - seem to be) and the garden. Each morning when I leave home, I can't wait for the moment when my train pulls back into Blackwater station and I see him waiting across the platform.

I'm no longer driven to be working till midnight or working all weekend. I don't crave promotion or glory. I just want a real life. One with values that don't involve making lots of money. One with people who aren't simply keen to know you because of what you can do for them, but one filled with people who just want the pleasure of your company.

Each day, when I get home,David is brimming over with things to talk to me about. He values ME - what's inside me - he talks and I listen. I talk and he listens. We challenge each other but most of all we cherish each other. Is it feeble to want more of that and less of the other stuff? I suspect it is but I really don't care!