The last couple of days have seen the exciting launch of The Rosie Janes’ website, and after countless years of work and - dare I say it?! - dictatorship, we’ve finally made our internet debut. Although I’m a bit doubtful that the world is really ready for us, if there is one thing we know how to do it is dig our heels in and I am certain that The Rosie Janes will inevitably filter through society, or at least a part of it!
I always thought of myself as being somewhat laid back, announcing in my leavers’ annual that my motto was “never do today what you can put off until tomorrow”, but I don’t believe I have ever fallen into the apathetic bracket. I think most of my family are more like sleeping dragons, prepared to live life quietly until something emerges that is worth our commenting or input. Still, I am without a doubt someone who needs something to work at or I have a tendency to drift a little. The Rosie Janes is a perfect rein to keep me in check.
As well as which, the spring is coming: as the lambs and calves in the field, the flash floods that are the result of heavy April showers and the strong, striking rainbows all show. How can anyone be apathetic with all that happening?! For my part it is smiles all round, slowing down when driving to admire the newborn animals and feeling very much like I could burst into song at any moment, usually with one of those 100% corny but equally endearing songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein or some other type of big music! It is a hope of ours to observe a “Life is a Musical” day, where everything is sung. I think it would be fantastic and encourage people to smile (which is, after all, what these Blogs aim to do!) and that can’t be a bad thing.
Really it all comes down to hope. Not knowing what is going to happen in life is precisely what makes it so precious, and hope is like a compass pointing our lives in the direction we want to go. I’ve always been a hopeful person - in fact on occasions my overwhelming imagination has led to a lot of hoping! - and I think that is why I am such a smiley person. When I walk down the street and encounter miserable people - although here I should make the point that increasingly I am encountering fewer and fewer - it seems obvious that they are people without sufficient hope. I hope I never get like that, I hope my continuous smiles and cheery hellos spark something inside them to feel hope again and see that life is really worth celebrating.
This spring let apathy fade away and start to be hopeful. I’ve had disappointments, tears and anger already this spring and we’re not even a month into it, but I would rather keep fighting against these things with an army of smiles and continue to let my hopeful nature drive me safely through.
Smiles are the way forward!
And thanks to all of you who supported this for Help for Heroes. If you still haven’t and want to make a difference from this: 
to this: 
for a wounded soldier, a couple of pounds isn’t too much but could make the world of difference!
