Famous Five Friday

It's about this time of year that the Famous Five set off on another fun-packed adventure, inevitably in an attempt to recover from a bad cold or to make room for Uncle Quentin's mad scientific friends. Dire warnings administered (no bathing in April or you'll get pneumonia George!) and promises to write/phone everyday sought, the Five mount their heavily-laden bicycles and ride off happily into the gorgeously warm April sunshine.


Of course, no great adventure can start without first enjoying the obligatory picnic, in a convenient wayside copse filled with waiter-like rabbits and chorister blackbirds. And after a good feed of smashing sandwiches, fruit cake and lashings of ginger beer plus an ice or two, they all nod off, full and contented with only Timmy keeping an ear out for intruders.


In our hectic lives I often wonder why we find it so difficult to achieve such a perfect, simple, state of contentment. And then I realise with a bang - it's all about perspective. The Five don't moan or make excuses - it's just not the done thing. When something goes wrong they give a cry of horror and then immediately devise a plan to fix things. It's something I strive to do more and more in my everyday life and it really works, when I remember. Yes, some days all I feel like doing is moaning and lamenting this, that or another problem, issue or situation. And when I find myself in that mood I know it's just a downwards spiral. Knowing what lies at the bottom of that spiral doesn't make it any easier to get out, but more often these days I manage to catch myself just in time, and hoick my person up onto a convenient ledge or ladder (for there always is one in an adventure) and design a way out from there.


It is said that we choose our own reality. Perhaps more than any other impetus this is what drives me to see the positives. I often see individuals (one family member springs to mind in particular) go about their every day lives in a continual state of negativity. And from the outside I can see that they are creating their own downfall - both real and perceived. Moreover, though, they just make everyone around them miserable as well! Nay-sayers do not listen to reasoning and resolve, because they are harder done to and suffer more than anyone else. I speak from experience!


This weekend I urge you to go out and enjoy a picnic with your friends and family. What's that, it's raining? So gather under a park bandstand or drive somewhere pretty and do the good old-fashioned British in-car-picnic thang. Be adventurous, be brave and be resolute! Go on, treat yourself - and all of those around you too :)