Once, about twelve years ago, I went on holiday with a group of teenagers including my best friend to a caravan in Norfolk. It was a wonderful taste of freedom and one of the things I did was to go and have my fortune told for the first time. I went to see a man in a hut in a car park who read my palms. I don’t remember a lot of what he said but one thing does stick in my memory. He told me that I would always have to work hard in life and that things wouldn’t really come easily to me.

That has, so far, been true. Of course I expect no one thinks they live a charmed life with things handed to them on a plate. Everyone thinks they work hard for a living. I suppose what the fortune-teller meant was that I would want so much in life that I would work hard and push for it, sometimes against the tide.

I’ve just got back from my slimming meeting . It’s only my second week though I’m a seasoned member of these things. I realised it was time to go back after five years away when I found myself not wanting to have photographs taken of me on holiday this year. A terrible, vain reason certainly, but my health is always in the back of my mind too. Last week I lost an impressive 3 1/2 pounds. This week the scales teetered a little before deciding that I had remained the same weight as the week before. I was disappointed as you can imagine, but not surprised at all. I know there is no quick route to a healthy weight. Those of you who’ve never struggled with it must wonder what all the fuss is about. I wonder what all the fuss is about…but when I joined again the other week, I said to those people involved that I was in it for the Long Game. The work will be hard, but I am not afraid of work. Everything I hold dear has been earned through stubbornly turning up, even when everything felt impossible.

My degree was four years of long slog. Learning to play the piano has been twenty years commitment. It’s taken me four years to get to where I am now with The Darkling Wood.

The times I am unhappy are the times when I try to rush the process. Following each step, one after the other, is the only way forward and though at times that is desperately frustrating, I know that everything will come when the time is right, and as someone once said, it is the journey and not the destination that is worth remembering.