Choices

The finger sign at the end of the line of woof trees on Gus's walk along the Kent estuary. It's been an up and down sort of week that's left me in a reflective mood. It ended on a high as the solar water panels were connected up, and within minutes the tank was filling with hot water. I felt strangely emotional about it, it was only at the end of June when we went to see Notions and we listened as Jenny extolled the virtues of her solar panels, that we made the choice to have them. After we had signed the contract we began to doubt if we had done the right thing, but as the team of men have worked on through the week, we knew that we had. It is a tiny gesture in the global carbon balance, but it is something we can do to reduce our own footprint on the planet.

And as Gus and I slalomed between the woof trees, I thought back to that day in December when Wifie told me that she had found her Christmas present. I had never really wanted to have a dog, but somehow when I listened to her describe her encounter with Gus that day, I was persuaded that we should make the choice to give him a home. And that choice has so enriched our lives, he has become very much a part of who we are. I had wondered if the need to walk him twice or more a day would constrain my choices of places to go walking and blip hunting, and maybe it has, but on the other hand the early mornings and sunset evenings on the Knott and along the coast have been full of infinite possibilities. I am lucky enough to live somewhere where I don't need to make a special effort to find something spectacular to photograph, it's all here in its own small way.

Choices we made many years ago have brought us to where we are today. We will never know what might have happened if we had made different choices at the major junctions in our life maps (and at the time we didn't know their significance anyway). But today and every day I feel happy that my choices in life led me to where I am now. What use are regrets anyway?