Stretched

I used to say I needed to walk four or five miles before I felt I'd 'stretched my legs'...before I got into my stride. Well I didn't used to just say it...it was true! And I used to love the feeling at the end of eight or ten when you were ready for a long soak in the bath and a flop on the sofa. Nowadays I can only manage the last five words of that sentence and it's not the same without the bit before...Yesterday I got that feeling though and it was wonderful! I certainly didn't stretch my legs, and one of the pains that has to be overcome is the pain of humiliation at my slow and stumbling steps, but the weather yesterday was so gloriously warm and sunny and I did have to go out for some necessities so it would have been foolish not to have extracted every bit of pleasure I could from it. And in stages, with lots of sit downs and refreshment breaks I got from one end of the sea front to the other as well as doing the shopping and other tasks in town. So it was the contemporary equivalent of a long walk and certainly felt like that afterwards! I'm often tired...goodness me, even getting ready to go out tires me out...but this was a different sort of tiredness and very good it felt too!

I give thanks for much napping on the sofa in the evening and for a very jolly Midsomer Murders about bird watchers and retired ballerina. Light relief from real life eh! It also reminded me of a trip to the Isles of Scilly in the autumn when the waxed jacketed obsessionals were out in force. On the whole not a friendly bunch I found...there was one who said hello and I remembered him because of it and because he had long hair which is not norm...and then I saw him months later on a boat behind Martin Clunes in a TV programme. Weird coincidences...and synchronicity...love them! I'm grateful for finding a new battery for my laptop on ebay as the current one is not in the best of health...and finally after the usual arguments about passwords and mother's maiden names I actually managed to order one from a supplier who uses the Royal Mail (just realised how quaint a title that is!).

Gratitude too for dreams which included a flock of seven or eight kingfishers, some of them carrying wriggling sliver fish, a giant strawberry (after reading about the predictions of John Elfreth Watkins Jr methinks) and a canteen closed because of an 'unauthorised animal' which turned out to be a cat! Oh and for the sight (back in the real world) of a neighbour's cat accompanying her and her dog to stretch their legs in the communal gardens.. I love the site of them scampering and trotting with their tails up to keep up. I used to have a cat that went on walks. Well I would wouldn't I? And yes it was black, ha ha!

Hope you're all doing OK. Apologies to those I owe messages or responses to, I've been ploughing through a backlog of important letters and paperwork and after that and this I lose the will to type... Take care of yourselves and be of good cheer. I am thinking of you...