Seeing the wood and the trees

Well I went with my friend in the car to the shops and had a hot chocolate and cake in a cafe that used to be an upmarket pharmacy and still has lots of the original wood and glass fittings, little drawers and old potion bottles and a mosaic floor! In the display cabinets they have an amazing collection of china especially novelty tea pots so it's a bit like going to a museum for a snack. It's where Ann and Anton had lunch when practising for last year's Strictly if that means anything to you! Up the road we popped into the local branch of Lloyds TSB bank still with many stunning old features too including a mighty carved inner door surround and an amazingly ornate plastered ceiling. Seriously, this was stately home style ornate...or maybe Las Vegas casino! I'll take a picture if I'm ever that way again. I give gratitude for living in such variously favoured part of the country. There's always new things to see, or things to see anew.

I give thanks for the weather today...sunny and pleasant this morning while we were out and dark and rainy this afternoon - ideal for practising my relaxation skills, ha ha! For a while there was no wind and the rain was just falling ramrod straight but then the tree branches outside my window began to wave about as the breeze got up again. Then gradually this changed too and the late afternoon sun lit up the sides of the leaves making those just turning autumn yellow seem a fresh spring green. I give thanks for being able to stay inside mostly horizontal and watch as it all passes by! I occasionally watched the inside of my eyelids and also Stephen Fry chat in English to a very lucid Chinese gentleman precisely twice my age ie 106! How amazing is that?