Bloganuary Day 10: I like a list, but not this kind….

What are five things you’re grateful for today?

Now, I like a list as much as the next blogger, but I have to say I’m a bit cautious about this particular prompt. That’s because to my mind these sort of ‘count your blessings’ lists tend to be all very similar and too often can come across as smug (‘look at me; what a lovely life I have’) and even complacent. I’d also say that they tempted fate, if I believed in such a thing.

So you’re not going to get a wholesome, saccharine litany of everything in the garden that’s rosy from me. Just take it that I have no complaints about the kinds of things that usually get regurgitated in response to questions such as these.

Instead, here are five fairly random things that I’m also grateful for today – and most other days, come to that.

1. A decent and fairly reliable internet connection. That may surprise some of you, but out here in the French countryside such a basic human right is by no means guaranteed. Our provider bounces the signal off their mobile phone masts, otherwise we would have to rely on an old-fashioned telephone wire which, in our case, would run at least three miles to the nearest booster station. 5G it ain’t.
2. The fact that there is no excise duty on wine. What a civilised country this is, to be sure. In the UK I baulk at paying the standard fiver for the cheapest wine they’ve got, since that’s nearly all tax and the cost of the actual wine content is about tuppence and usually tastes like it.
3. I got our wood-burning stove up and running first time this morning. It usually does, thanks to the fact that we now have a very good supplier of logs, but I’m always grateful not to have to faff around with the blowtorch thingy to spark it up.
4. I am always grateful for the Grateful Dead. If you want to know why, read this.
5. It’s curry for dinner. This is never bad news.