Celebrating being alive, with the dog.

Dog walking. There are bits of ordinary days that are closer to the essence. If painting is worth the effort of doing or being looked at, then it must be touching something essential. So what is essential? Dog walking gets there, ticks lots of boxes.
I just went out, it's new years day, it's very cold and there's a hoar frost magically placed just on the tops of the trees and not on trunk or ground. The valley looks as if it has been glazed with icing sugar, swept with a wand by an ice queen, beautiful and blessed. I'm 56 and have never quite seen the like. So the dog got me out and the year is only hours old and life is lovely, I'm humbled and elevated and enriched.