One of the sweetest presents I got for my birthday this year was quite an unusual one - the Serenity Runes. 

They were from my friend K, who is a Christian. As anyone will know who has read this blog regularly, I am a galloping atheist, but K and I manage to not argue about our different belief systems. 

It's odd that she should pick the Serenity Prayer, by Reinhold Niebuhr, because it was always a favourite of mine when I was a believer, along with the poem by Max Ehrmann that begins: "Go quietly amid the noise and haste..."

You don't need to be a believer to benefit from the Serenity Prayer - just replace God with Fate or Nature or whatever you DO believe in. It reads:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.

My runes are written on polished amethysts (my favourite stone, as it happens) - you just pop your hand in the bag, jiggle the stones, and pick out a rune as your theme for the day. Since I have replaced God with Nature, my runes are Nature, Serenity, Acceptance, Courage and Wisdom. Each morning I pick out a rune and then try to remember to meditate on that theme or practise that virtue for the rest of the day.

It is proving surprisingly useful. When I was detoured into a massive traffic jam the other day when I went to pick up the DH from the station, I almost panicked (I am a person who likes to know where I'm going at all times), but then I remembered that my word of the day was Acceptance, so I wound the windows down, breathed deeply and went with the flow - the delay was only some 30 minutes.  

Today my rune said Courage, which I am trying to remember as I struggle with incipient bronchitis. It's not bad as yet, but I have a history of bad attacks of bronchitis, necessitating antibiotics, which then trigger a flare of my ulcerative colitis, and on it goes.  I have never, in years, had a cold that didn't turn to bronchitis, and I find it very frightening, so courage is definitely in order at the moment. 

I suppose one should practise all the virtues on a daily basis, but it would obviously be too much. Limiting it to one a day is a useful exercise, and in fact I'm thinking of adding some more, such as Cheerfulness, Charity and Compassion - a use for some of those pebbles I lug back from Brittany after every holiday.

The Serenity Runes are available from Amazon.  

I am typing this blog, for the very first time, in our new shed. 

When I say 'our', I really mean 'my'. His nibs will get to use it, of course, but I claim first dibs on decorating and furnishing it. It's my girly girly girl cabin. 

What I actually wanted was a caravan that I saw advertised on a local site - just 250 euros. My husband's snobbery and flat refusal have resulted instead in our 2,500 euro 'winter palace' - a shed some 10.5m square, on its own concrete square with verandah.

It is - I must admit - a place of perfect contentment, tucked away down here at the bottom of the orchard, barely visible from the house even in winter, turning its back to the slope of our neighbour farmer's hill. One side is hidden by the laurel hedge we put in as a windbreak, the other by the hedgerow line we planted some years ago. 

Getting it built has been a bloody nightmare, with the builder hurting his back, the ground freezing, the inabiilty to hire plant because of the wheat sowing, the endless rain. It took the efforts of four builders, three farmers, a digger, a concrete mixer, a whacker plate, two tractors and ourselves just to get the base in, and five days after the DH and I assembled the actual structure (which went up easy-peasy, log cabin-style), we lost the bitumen roof in a storm. 

But still, we can forget all that, now that's it's in, and it's lovely. 

There's no floor in yet, nothing on the walls and no furnishings other than a couple of recliners and a drop-leaf table, but nevertheless, it's the place in the garden that has become our daily destination. 

From where I'm sitting, I look across the pond to the small deck, the nameless acer - now leafless - the Wedding Day rose covered with tiny red hips, and on, up the slope of the garden, under the pear tree, through the cherry thicket, and on to the piggery and upper barn, almost invisible through the trees. 

The DH looks across all three ponds, to the willow hedge and the Paul's Himalayan Musk, the Kiftsgate rose and the lower barn. And the bamboo clumps that will one day be groves 30ft high. 

It is very private. There are birds singing all around me, and the comforting smell of the fir from which the building is made. The sun is traversing between the barn and the house, before it sets behind our lower barn. It's remarkably warm inside, considering there is no heating or insulation. 

I am absolutely in love with my shed, which is something I've wanted for years. A few years ago I bought a tent on Ebay and pitched that down here for the course of the summer, and it was brilliant. I came down every morning to do my yoga, opened up the zips and would find my (sadly now deceased) cat Lucy ensconced in one of the deckchairs. But this is even better. 

I now have, of course, all sorts of plans for my shed, which is going to be beach house style. A thin white wash inside, open shelving with a table and hopefully a small cooking hob. Mineral water, biscuits and magazines; a big mirror to reflect the light; curtains for the doors and windows. The flooring will be autoclaved pine planks, which have to be ordered from Rennes, 90km away (but at half the price of local offerings), and my old Heal's daybed will replace this teak recliner, with plenty of fleeces and duvets to cuddle up in. 

We've already bought a rather scary-looking Tilley lamp and if, as we intend, we can replace the doors with glass ones in time, then we'll also install a butane heater to make it cosy. In summer it will be our guest accommodation, and all year round, a shelter from the rain and cold, somewhere to work when the sun is too bright, and just a place to get away and enjoy nature.