Isn't it wonderful when you come across something someone has written that reflects exactly how you feel - and they were able to choose just the right words to express it?

This spring I have dug up and created a large new garden in the front of our house, and I cannot tell you how much joy and excitement I have had planning it, scouring various gardening books deciding on just the right perennials and flowering shrubs to plant there.

However, this past week I have spent many hours each day sitting at my elderly mother's bedside in the hospital, and as she dozed I lifted my spirits away from the smells and sounds of hospital life by browsing a gardening book by a particular favourite of mine. Steve Whysall is a gardener and journalist who lives in British Columbia, and he writes various newspaper gardening columns and gardening books.

In his book "100 Best Plants for the Ontario Garden" he wrote:

"If gardening is about anything, it is about knowing and valuing the inherent power of nature to overcome winter and bounce back to life."

It's almost worth living through 4 months of snow each year to experience the overwhelming happiness I feel when I see the 90 daffodils I planted last fall with the grand kids, popping their heads up through the still cold soil. Yea, they survived! Or, watching the blossom on our new pear tree (that we thought had died) swelling by the day.

Thank you Steve Whysall for taking me away from a sad reality of my life, even for just a little while.

Such is the power of a few well-chosen words.

I watched an utterly amazing documentary this evening borrowed from the local library. It is called "The English Surgeon" which seems like a rather humble title, in my opinion, for an extremely remarkable man.

Dr. Henry Marsh is a renown neurosurgeon at one of London's top hospitals, yet since 1992 he has spent much of his free time helping, operating, and trying to improve medical conditions in the Ukraine. The film follows him on one of his trips to a Ukrainian hospital which we see is full of desperate patients and makeshift equipment. In his suitcase is 'old' equipment which has been discarded by his British hospital, yet is received with joy by his Ukrainian counterpart. Drill bits which are used once in London then discarded, are made to be used for 10 years in the Ukrainian hospital.

Indeed this film is not for the squeamish. In one part it shows Dr. Marsh operating on a patients' brain using only a local anesthetic (I had to look away during parts of that) the patient is alert and talking throughout, and the doctors use a handyman's Bosch cordless drill to gain access into the brain. The operation was a success despite the drill running rather low on power in the middle!

This is an intimate portrait of a true humanitarian.

I received this last week, and to my mind it speaks of the ultimate truth. Here are just a few of the frames.

Hope it speaks to you too ...

Rainy Days ...

It’s damp and rainy today. A day which many people say is best spent in bed. But rainy days don’t affect me like that. I like them! I especially enjoy the way they put no demands on me. On days like this I am free to choose my own mood.

When the weather is warm and sunny people tend to walk around with a spring in their step and a smile on their face, and expect the world to feel the same, they shout out at strangers, “Isn’t it a wonderful day?” I wonder what would happened if I replied, “No, actually, I don’t think it is!”

Being worried, distressed or depressed on a sunny day feels three times as bad. It’s like being alone at Christmas. Even if it’s your choice, your preferred state, it feels wrong, out of sync with the world.

Likewise with a bright fresh day – you are not supposed to feel down or listless. There are windows to be washed, weeds to be weeded, grass to be cut. Everyone and their dog is outside enjoying this ‘beautiful’ day. Except you … because you don’t have the energy or ambition to get off the couch, let alone lift a rake. On days like that it feels like a giant magnifying glass is being held up to your mood, and it is found wanting.

No, give me a rainy day. All the energizer bunnies are then safely inside their own little boxes, where I can’t see them, and probably feeling sorry for themselves because their boisterous activities are being curtailed by the weather. Good job they don’t live in rainy old England – if you stayed inside there when it rains you’d never see the light of day!

An old friend, who happens to be an Anglican minister, once told me that his parishioners were always telling him that he should smile more often. It’s true that his face, at rest, has a rather curmudgeon look to it, and he has a shaggy grizzly beard which hides many of his features. However, to me, it is the kind of face that a person can feel comfortable with – rather like an old comfy chair. He said he doesn’t trust people who smile all the time and I think I firmly agree with him!