A number of gifts today starting with this small cake and candle received soon after the new year turned. As we walked back to our rooms in the dark after our New Year ceremony we pondered aloud on how they were doing in Allendale. We looked in that direction, a glow rimmed the moors above us.

Other gifts: my late Masters birthday today, my late mothers birthday today (would have been 100 years old), a fluke of a meeting with reader and partner and small child while out for a walk (what a joy!), walk with guest and reader to visit her late husbands grave, discover in conversation with a regular here that he is a Jade regular too... Lots of gifts one way and another. And comments-they are a very much a gift too.