We've all crawled towards the finish line of the end of January. It feels like the 51st, never mind the 31st. It's always a bit of a grind, even in normal times, but the routine of my life has always been the happy promise of a family get together and a party for my Dad's birthday at the end of this month. This year it's been a card and a phone call, not steak and chips in the Toll House. Like so many things, making do and staying safe is no substitute. Last week I tried to make an effort and caught up with a few good friends over the phone and Zoom and whatever else. It's not the same as breaking bread with them, or the free flowing conversation that comes from a walk on the hills, or on an awayday to the match, or just time well spent doing nothing much at all. My stock response to friendly enquiries is that I'm OK. But I worry, constantly, about how everyone is. And I find my self saying it's OK not to be OK, like I know what I'm talking about. Instead I stop and talk to this object in a field, above, that I pass on my morning walk. I don't know what it is, what it does, or why it's there. And then it speaks back to me saying pretty much the same thing of me. We seem to have been in close proximity to heartbreak and real grief recently, the net result being we hold our own ever closer, literally and metaphorically, depending on distance. I'm relieved our parents have had the vaccine, it gives us the hope that this is edging towards something better, that there will be birthday get togethers again, that we will enjoy life as it is meant to be lived. Until then we can only say what I say at the end of our radio show each week - look after each other out there.