The Passage of Time

The Times They Are a-Changin' sang Bob Dylan and just lately I have been thinking how much that applies to my life at the moment. Time passes quickly, and the phases of our lives change so rapidly. First comes childhood, then adolescence, young married, raising a family, the empty nest and then the satisfaction of seeing our children making successful lives of their own. This is the phase in which I now find myself and I have been contemplating recently how quickly those earlier phases have passed and I want to shout SLOW DOWN. It has now been a year since I stopped work (or should I say paid work outside the home), and that time has gone in a flash. Maybe my contemplation is because already the first signs of spring have started to appear and it doesn't seem possible that there are only a few weeks left of winter. Wasn't it only yesterday that I pruned the roses? Already they are sending out their first little green shoots. The Geraldton wax in our neighbour's garden is flowering and the grape hyacinths have begun to flower. Each year when these little blue bells tinged with white appear in the garden, they remind me of Mandy & Michael's wedding day. At the reception we had pots of them in the centre of every table and we saved them all so that each year when they flowered they would give us a lovely reminder of that happy day. Now Mandy & Michael are expecting their first child and another new phase is about to commence. I just hope that it doesn't pass as quickly as the rest of my life, but I intend to savour every moment of it.