I'm using this deliberately upbeat sentiment about sunshine because I've just been talking to a friend to whom not only is the glass half-empty, it's also cracked and the water is filthy. He can be very depressing to talk to. When it gets too bad, I think of the pep talk the friar gave to Romeo when things were looking bleak.

What, rouse thee, man! Thy Juliet is alive,

For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead—

There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,

But thou slew’st Tybalt—there art thou happy.

The law that threatened death becomes thy friend

And turns it to exile—there art thou happy.

A pack of blessings light upon thy back,

Happiness courts thee in her best array,

Honestly, I do think of those words: "there art thou happy." And they help.

I am so blessed, I have no reason to complain, certainly not of the cold nor of neglect. Rather, I chafe at my own inertia - I've mentioned this before, so I won't dwell on it.

There was a family joke, a line that occurred before I was born. The people next door to my parents had a cute little dog that my brother, then about four years old (and articulate, you will notice, according to the joke), my brother often looked longingly at. The neighbour asked him if he'd like a dog of his own and my brother, according to the story, answered: "We could have a dog if we cared for a dog, but we don't care for a dog." (There's a lot of psychology in that line.) Anyway, I think of that, too, when I'm at loose ends, with the whole world at my fingertips, so to speak, but not readily available, not without some effort. I think: I could do that or have that or whatever, if I cared to. If I cared to make the effort, get off my butt, look around, count my blessings, all that, yes, I know. It's just that sometimes I wish someone would do it for me.

I don't remember what happened to Monday, but it's Tuesday already, half over at that. It seems to take all my willpower to get up in the cold and dark and immerse myself in water to swim at 6 in the morning. No time or focus for a blog then and later, I seem to have shot my entire wad of willpower in that one, wet, shivering half hour of discipline. So yesterday was blogless. (Spelcheck just tried to correct it to bloodless, but I mean blogless. Don't you hate it when it thinks it knows better than you?) Where was I? Here, now, and I do have something totally irrelevant to ask.

Have you been able to find soup bones where you live? They are very scarce here. I went for two years without finding pork hocks, except expensive smoked ones, overkill for soup, and finally found some yesterday. Coming up after the current soup (chicken vegetable right now) - coming up - is pork hock pea soup, so thick you can stand a spoon up in it. Last week I found cut up beef shank bones, but only one had any marrow. A few weeks ago I bought a beef brisket, haven't seen one since. What's wrong with people? Is it the store or the shopper? Doesn't anyone make soup? Surely in this weather people cook up great steaming pots of hearty, warm, thick, delicious soup.

I wasn't going to get into food in my blog because so many people already do. Julie Powell parlayed her blog about cooking Julia Child into a best-selling book and movie. But a cold winter and a dearth of soup bones has forced me into a blog bleat about soup. My first cookbook was about leftovers and the backbone of the book, if you'll pardon the expression, was soup. I used to say that a good soup required a history not a recipe. That's still true, but I do buy ingredients for soup as well, especially bones. I freeze onion parings and celery tops and limp carrots. They all add flavour and vitamins to the stock. If you've ever wondered what to do with the gills of Portobello mushrooms, wonder no more: add them to the vegetables in the soup pot.

I'm still cold. I'm going to have a cup of soup. The sooner I finish this lot, the sooner I get to the pork hocks.