Morning. Ink. Blood

I'm sitting by the window with a fat black cat on my lap.
A dog, as always, is yelping in another street, and birds (assorted) are also tweeting, twittering. All against a background of deep Sunday morning silence...and sporadically the shriek of my neighbour's grinder. But because he's a good man, I can find it in me to forgive him.
It's heading towards year end, I carry an annual amount of heaviness, tiredness and black rings beneath my already dark eyes. I'm heavy and slow. But next week this time I expect to be done, to be on summer holidays, and to be resting. The anticipation is what drives me.
In the meantime though I need to oversee the birth of one final edition of the paper for 2011. In particular there are three stories weighing heavily on me as they percolate in my mind's storm eye.
I live this newspaper, we are intertwined, we are inseparable. Ink runs in my veins, blood is with which the words are printed on the paper.
I am growing intensely: as human being, as writer, as journalist, as photographer. Growing too, I pray, in humility, simplicity, kindness, love. My needs are less.
What more can a man ask for? Except, perhaps, to know God much better, more intimately?
This, more than anything, do I seek (no full stop)