Love your planet

I give thanks for coming up with the idea of having pancakes for yesterday's tea - fairly easy on the hands, very easy on the tastebuds, and feeling miserable and in need of remedies unavailable or disallowed (being outside, being cuddled, being creative, chocolate, Crabbies etc etc) they were a sticking plaster for the soul. I give thanks for a glimpse of the butter moon rising between the leafy trees in the pastel pink washed sky, and for it being still, so that the carnival fireworks on the point rose straight up and I could see the tallest of the rockets burst.

I give thanks for less pain today, and so much sunshine that I decided to have my afternoon snacks and rests at various sea front spots in between doing the in town chores. Warm is very good for my sore bits...as is distraction. I give thanks for lots to see apart from the folk who've come to see the sea, including a fish jumping out of it when it came too close to the shore... and this beautiful mosaic.

Never you mind

I give thanks for getting through twenty four hours of very difficult pain and fatigue - for a while operating taps, cups, kettle and cutlery was almost impossible so I've been grateful for an improvement on that! Will my new quilts be worth it? Well, when I can summon the energy to get them on the bed I'll let you know!

I give thanks for the opportunity to practice being mindful...and mindless...and not minding stuff so much. For doing a few sedentary clicky things - downloading updates, looking for fabric to make a duvet cover after the first lot I ordered was out of stock and going through some photos to see what can be deleted. I give thanks for finding some astonishingly beautiful images (though I say so myself!), for reliving the pleasure of places I've been and things I've seen...and dealing with the poignancy of wanting to return. I give thanks for living close to places so easy on the eye...and having a camera to help me revisit them when it's still too far to actually go.

I give thanks for the marzipan smell of dried meadowsweet Rachel brought me. I give thanks for one of those rare spells of almost total silence with no squawking, screaming, thumping, banging, barking, cooing or droning on - I love just to be still too and soak it in. I give thanks for bright sails catching the evening sun and breeze,

Saved for later

Last night I was grateful for an early bath and a little lie down afterwards that found me waking hours later and having to get up in the night to go to bed! This morning I gave thanks for being able to tell myself no matter how much everything hurt and how badly a duvet day was required, it was nothing compared to how much worse I'd feel later. I wasn't very grateful for this you understand, so I added thanks in anticipation for having a duvet to do it with if I just persevered a few hours longer...

I give thanks for little green apples bunched on a bough and a bouncing happy spaniel. I give thanks for catching a glimpse of the bus just in time to catch it - when I rule the world seats will be positioned so you can see what you're waiting for! I give thanks for seeing a woman already on it wearing the same mac as me, though not so much that not a fragment of a smile was raised about it by anyone else than me!

I'm grateful to Save it for Later for making a sore body and aching heart smile inwardly on an outward bound bumpy ride (and yes, I still rank Roger, ha ha!) and for seeing the seafront sculptures, thinking I really must try to get some pictures and remembering that I already had taken one or two on a very windy day just not uploaded them yet...

I give thanks for doing what I went out for and, being even more done in than afterwards than I feared I might be, for doing very little since!

Let there be

I'm grateful for catching up with Rachel and sharing news and reviews of the unexpected learning experiences that have come our way over the last three weeks. I must admit I'm not always as appreciative of life's lessons as I might be, wishing I could be playing with plasticine while someone reads me a story instead but hey ho, there you go and all that. I'm grateful for a treatment to restore some balance.

I'm grateful for that light bulb moment when she changed the one I couldn't...

I'm grateful for getting up and getting on with the unavoidable for as long as absolutely necessary ie. until Jenny had finished the other chores (thank you Jenny!) and then giving up on the day. I was in too much pain to knit any more or hold a book so I gave thanks for earplugs to block out a noisy afternoon and had a long lie down instead. Then I gave thanks for a biscuit tin to prop up my laptop lid and whiled away some time looking on the internet for a duvet cover I could bear to buy, or perhaps the fabric to make one. After finding little to appeal apart from some material I can't really be sure will until I see it, I went for a rummage to see if there were any flat sheets or pillow cases I'd forgotten about to make a set if it did...and was astonished and grateful to find loads of bedding I thought I'd given away long ago that will tide me over very nicely when I actually get the quilt here and aired and ready to go on the bed! I'm grateful it's too late now to try starting that stage today, and that, having spent so long doing something it turns out I didn't need to, I didn't start doing something else I probably didn't need to either.

Got it covered

I give thanks for managing to get some sleep despite wrestling at both ends of the night with my duvet. I don't actually have a duvet you understand - I was wrestling with the problem of how to get one again which I've been wanting to do ever since sleeping under Jan's delightful downy cloud.

I give thanks for getting the shopping done, on the internet and in the shops. For the cool grey blowy weather and the warm smiles around. I give thanks for much nattering at knitting, for laughter, tea and biscuits and a lift home. I give thanks that Rachel is on her way with the other sort of needles...

True stories

I give thanks for waking late and lying in bed later listening to the comforting sound of rain and eating toast and houmous  - a bonus of no social life is the chance to indulge one's anti social habits! I give thanks for discovering it's true that you can successfully freeze houmous.

I give thanks for finding someone who reckons they can fix my laptop - with a bus stop outside their shop.

I don't know many people with similar taste in books to me so I was grateful to find quite a helpful site http://www.lovereading.co.uk and to find a couple of the ones I fancied for 1p on Amazon. 

I give thanks for getting a few things done I wanted to today and for making an attempt at a few more - including being philosophical about all the things I didn't get done. I give thanks this philosophy extends to the formatting right on this post!

I give thanks for a kind letter from my incarcerated penfriend.

I give thanks for a quiet and cosy patch to nap in.

The best of other worlds

I give thanks for waking up very achy but awake enough to get myself out of my bed and flat before a hammer and chisel were required - even though it felt as though they were being used to do it!

I give thanks for glimpses of the majestic moor - at a distance but no less appreciated. I give thanks for buying delicious picnic food - I'm not going on one but no point in missing all the fun! I give thanks for music to my ears and a top deck view of all the folk with their places to go and people to see. I give thanks that even though I envy their lifestyle sometimes I understand I'd be no good at their living it and, in all fairness, most of them would struggle with mine.

I give thanks for slow traffic delaying the return journey the better to admire the views, including a pretty bride on the way to her wedding in a horse drawn carriage. I give thanks that it thus was too late for some of the things I'd planned to do back here and I could rest with a takeaway cuppa watching the sun sparkle on the sea instead. I give thanks there are towns nearby with more shops, and that I live in one with few. I give thanks for a bit of a natter with one of the friendly cab drivers - I miss being able to walk, but at least I get to talk a little sometimes.

I give thanks for finding some shoes with my name on them (literally though not spelt the same!) after giving up looking for anything light and airy to wear that both will both protect and conceal my damaged toenails. I give thanks they're don't give up on life red, and that after getting them home and discovering just how comfy they were I gave up on the madcap idea of going straight out again to trek back and buy some more! I give thanks for a long nap instead.

Dark and light

I give thanks that yesterday evening I managed to get up again before dark and partake of a hearty supper. I give thanks for a double yolk egg to scramble for my brunch today.

I give thanks for lots and lots of rain for people with lots of garden needing watering. I give thanks for lots of darkness for people like me needing lots of extra sleep! I give thanks it was so dark I felt moved to try changing the dead spotlight bulb in the kitchen - a job I'd been putting off as it's best for me to hold on tight with both hands if I climb up a ladder. I'm grateful I regard just attempting the task as a success as actually achieving the goal was a fail...

I give thanks for a little light craft work between the snoozes, and for my laptop just about still holding together, though it's as hard to close it for its own snoozes as to open it and comfortably use the screen, and it gets so hot it may soon be more use for ironing than Internet access!

Catch as catch can

I'm grateful for overcoming various acts of uncooperation by tools and their operator and finally settling down with a DVD, a laptop that lifts its lid, external disc drive as the internal one on the one that does doesn't function, stand as it also weighs a ton, headphones and a cuppa last night. Who would have guessed what an effort relaxing would be... I'm grateful I enjoyed the film!

I'm grateful for those pesky gulls waking me in time to catch a glimpse of the pretty sunrise. I'm grateful for eventually getting back to sleep and waking the second time too tired and achy to contemplate rising and going about the day, but having to anyway... I'm grateful for finding enough twenty pees in the change drawer to change for pretty flowers, and for thinking to go to a florist as they had much better ones there than the places I sometimes buy them for me!

I'm grateful to Jenny for finding me almost on my hands and knees at our arranged meeting place and sharing her Waitrose coffee while I summoned the strength to get to her car. I'm grateful for spending the afternoon catching up with Biddy while Julie caught up with herself a bit...

I'm grateful for coming home to one of those unexpected spells of quiet calm on the terrace, enjoying hearing myself think thoughts not about what I wished I couldn't hear and doing a little gentle sewing up of some knitting. I'm grateful for valiantly starting to make tea before sensibly giving up, curling up back in bed and catching some extra zzzzs...

Sweet sixteen

I give thanks for having some capability in my hands today, which the rest of me was grateful for so it could have a rest I give thanks that I now seem to be creating a blanket rather than a pile of squares, and that now that project seems to be safely on the way I can get back to another one that's been resting for a while and which inspired me greatly again when I dug it out earlier. I give thanks for having several creative works on the go so that whenever I feel I can do one I can so whichever I choose.

I give thanks for getting one of the last £25 minimum Tesco orders before it goes up to £40 as I needed a top up of basics...and one or two things that are just basically nice! I give thanks for the young lad who delivered it saying it would be hard for pensioners - nice to know he cares and that he could tell I wasn't one!

I give thanks for people in the vicinity making me laugh. They did it unintentionally but then so did I...

Rewind

I was very grateful for finding a link to images of these sculptures the other day
http://inhabitat.com/nightmarish-figures-made-from-old-vhs-tapes-wander-in-frozen-iceland/v-hs-project-by-philip-ob-rey-1/?extend=1

Apart from their own intrinsic dark beauty, they reminded me how much I want to go to Iceland, how much I like black and white photography and that it's T.R.A.I.L time again on the seafront. I'm grateful they spurred me on to find an exhibition of the second I feel could be worth travelling to, and actually travelling to the seafront to see the third. You might reasonably expect a photo or two to follow that, but my journey there was far longer and more arduous than expected, and I was actually quite grateful when I got there and discovered my camera had failed to leap from the sofa into my bag so I could just sit and rest a while...

I'm grateful that, despite its best attempts to fall apart, the washing machine could be persuaded to submit to my will again; for getting 8 DVDs for £10 at the closing down rental store in town and for jollity with cab drivers - even ones I wasn't riding with. I'm grateful to Sally for sending me an old phone to add to the recycling.

Something's lost

Hmm... I'm grateful for a late siesta! I've been a busy little bee by current standards the last few days. It's good to feel a bit like the 'old' me for a while even though the new one has to sleep for a while afterwards. I'm grateful I'm getting better at doing nothing. I'm grateful there's so much I still would like to do.

I'm grateful for mending my kitchen drawer, and for knowing I have to leave the piles of spilt compost on the floor to dry out before vacuuming. This cuts out cutting out for sewing too so more chance for inactivity - an accidental bonus!

I'm grateful for waking to a beautiful evening even though I'm not going anywhere. I'm grateful I seem to feel more mellow than many of my neighbours.

I'm grateful for finding I'd lost something and, while unsuccessfully looking for it, finding something I thought I'd lost. I'm grateful it made me happy all over again...

Wash the walls instead

Well, I'm grateful last night's 'easy' tea wasn't spag bol or chicken tikka as a lot of it ended on the floor, the wall, the cupboards and me! I'm grateful I managed to get most of the stains out of a favourite top...but I'm still working on the rug. Convenience food it was not! I'm grateful for the nap before bedtime that ensued...

I'm grateful for an old Columbo I'd not watched before, set on a cruise liner - even better!

I'm grateful I felt lively enough to go and get some bread and tea bags - but no milk so I could loiter on the seafront afterwards. I'm grateful for finding a parking space for my seat and that rhubarb and custard ice cream is back in town. I'm grateful for puns...and favourite tunes.

Drawing to a close

I'm grateful for my deep bath, my unmetred water and for finding some of my favourite Sanctuary foams at a good price on ebay a couple of weeks ago. I'm grateful for sleeping soundly despite my tangled dreams...

I'd kind of planned to go out today and of course, when I woke up there was the sun shining ready but after counting the pains and the pounds in my purse it seemed very sensible to stay in instead, so I'm grateful it clouded over later.

I'm grateful for getting a bit of cleaning and tidying done, and dabbling in a little light creativity - trying out some art software that's way too complicated for me, finishing making some old trousers that are now too big a bit smaller and knitting a square and a bit for the blanket. 

I'm grateful tea is ready prepared stuff because when I went into the kitchen just now thinking, 'Well my work here is done, now I can rest and play', the front of one of the kitchen doors came half off in my hand - but it's not in the way for simply heating things up! I'm grateful I'm sure I can fix it....another day...

Summer fate

I give thanks for vacuuming the kitchen floor and ironing a double sheet last night. I couldn't have held knitting needles a moment longer, the toast I dropped this morning landed in a clean bit and ironing's much easier if you do it before the things get too dry.

I give thanks for finally finding a timetable with all stops for a strange local bus route I have to take occasionally to get to the hospital here. It was very late as the traffic was very slow so I'm grateful I didn't get a taxi instead and have to pay for being stuck in a jam.

I give thanks to Jenny for inviting me to lunch after my appointment - she doesn't read my blog so she doesn't know I've been unhappy lately but equally, as she doesn't, she doesn't assume I'm always as happy as can be and wouldn't benefit from an act of kindness. I'm grateful I could contribute by making the sun come out!

I'm grateful she lives up a wild sided lane with pretty grasses, it's hard on the knees but easy on the eyes...and they also enjoyed the wonderful views including her beautiful roses.

I'm grateful every joint and muscle and tendon seems to be hurting as much as it can this evening. I find physical pain much easier to deal with - you don't care about all the things you cannot do, because doing nothing is challenge enough.

Dark grey

Gratitude? Hmm... Pass. I'm grateful I keep a gratitude journal because without knowing I've set myself the task to find some I don't think I'd have felt a teensy weeny bit grateful today.

I'm grateful I have somewhere to live. I'm grateful it's been another mostly grey and dark day, perfectly reasonable for staying inside it - there were a couple of patches where the sun broke through the low clouds and I was worried I might feel I ought to go out, but mercifully they passed. I'm grateful I've not been in a lot of physical pain so in the bits when I felt motivated I could get on with this and that that needed doing. I'm grateful I haven't felt very motivated. I'm grateful when I feel grumpy and sad I can just get on with it without having to apologise or explain. I'm grateful I don't have to eat if I don't feel like it either, but that there's food available when I do. I'm grateful for mugs of tea.

See missed

I'm grateful for recovering from the shock of settling down to watch the last two episodes of Breaking Bad and discovering at the end of the first one that there was actually only one left...

I'm grateful for listening to people saying interested and appreciative things about the resident pigeons' family life instead of shouting at them for their endless cooing. You often hear more of all life here than you might want to, and it is difficult to be interested and appreciative all the time...

After three days' inactivity my body felt ready for some moving around so I give thanks for a no work needed for now dental appointment and space in the recycling bins I passed to get there.

I give thanks for my first full sight of the sea for a while, though it was hazy and pale...and for the little puffs of clouds clinging to the top of some of the headlands.

I give thanks for spotting a solitary tiny striped field convolvulus flower on the grassy bank as I walked by.

I give thanks for a nap and, on waking, managing to pack away my deep thoughts for a while and get on with a bit of knitting.

Switching off

After the effort expended creating it I'm grateful I still have my fresh clean bed to get into tonight, as last night's neighbourhood shenanigans meant it was a better plan trying to sleep on the other side of the building. I'm grateful it was quiet on that side and above and below... for headphones and iplayer on my tablet, and ear plugs to seal in my dreams.

I'm grateful for less pain today, and for more inactivity. I seem to have a lot of thought processing to do at the moment, a lot of staring into space... I'm grateful for switching my brain off with books, by switching on the TV and then delving into recordings. I'm grateful for being able to create my own schedules. I'm grateful though my hands have been too sore for knitting I've done a little sewing on the machine.

Dreaming the live

I give thanks for another excellent episode of Rock and Roll America, lots of vintage clips and people...and that most of them agree that the Everly Brothers All I Have to Do is Dream is about as dreamy as a song can be...

I give thanks for a couple of morning cuppas in bed before a lunchtime nap to set me up for the strenuous task of remaking it with fresh bedding, followed by a shower, a snack and a sleep on the sofa!

I'm grateful for another cool grey day - the summer of my dreams as my dreams are so exhausting and lots of staying in in between them is necessary. 

I'm grateful for my air show sun tan. How is that different from any other sort? No white v-shape under your neck!

I give thanks for that strange feeling when you're reading a novel set somewhere else and shifts to a place you know well...

Moving targets

Well, I'm grateful I hurt less today than I feared I might, though I've been far more tired than even I imagined so I've been grateful I had to do very little that was upright and not much that involved moving at all.

I'm grateful it's been cloudy and grey and not weatherwise a day to make you feel you're missing out not going out or even looking through the window

I'm grateful for being hopeful tomorrow I might aim for more ambitious targets like a few rows of knitting, washing up or putting on clothes - though possibly not all three in the same half of the day!

I'm grateful for Tesco Finest cauliflower cheese, toast and butter and cornetto-esque ice cream - not the most balanced of diets but easy to eat with sore joints in hands and arms, and tasty, very tasty indeed.

I'm grateful I've finally got round to looking at my pictures from yesterday and that one or two are OK as they are, as editing would be far too strenuous and demanding. Given slow reaction times, wobbly hands and a pocket camera, an air show is unlikely to produce my best work so it's best to go with a photographer and not feel you really need to try too hard. It's hard to resist trying a bit, of course though and my new camera had not been pointed at planes before and I was interested to see what it could find in the view finder apart from fuzzy cloud space where aircraft might have been before and perfectly focused baseball caps...

Good turns

I'm grateful for remembering to put a note on the fridge last night reminding me to take the packed lunch out and put it in my bag this morning..

For the early light in my kitchen - not something I often see!

I'm grateful I wrote the above almost fourteen hours ago as it's been a long and sometimes arduous day with so many things to be grateful for and too much pain and tiredness to tell it tonight.

I'm grateful for the company of a good friend, much laughter and philosophy, and the comfort bubble two or more people can create to make dealing with big crowds less stressful. For a stunning selection of varied air displays and demonstrations. For kind weather and clean loos, and for the astonishing patience and courtesy of drivers in two long lines of slow moving traffic coming from opposite directions to turn into a narrow gate - they actually took it in turns, one car from one queue, one from another, with no one directing them to do it.

Dark knights

I give thanks for letting a long dark night of the soul turn into light of morning and manage just to observe the feelings, not feel I owned them or they were me.

I give thanks for that surprised feeling you get when you wake up and realise you have, against all odds, actually been asleep.

I give thanks for not wanting to communicate with anyone this morning and then receiving email communication from someone who knows exactly how this feels and exactly what not to say

I give thanks for hearing a day out tomorrow still seems to be on and having to get things ready. Even if for some reason it has to be cancelled getting ready today was a usefully focused occupation...

I give thanks for a match of great tennis that made me forget all of the above. I do think it's a little odd they let automata compete in what's meant to be a human game... But maybe I'm the only one who knows?

Square eyes

Good news bears little resemblance to anything I've heard today, nor not heard either come to that. So I give thanks for Fortitude...oh no, that's finished now hasn't it?...for Breaking Bad then which is about to. I give thanks for a successful wrestle with furniture and grovel on the floor last night to coax my Skybox and TV into co-operating again. Maybe that's why my joints ache so much today...As for my heart? Well I just have to give thanks for my dogged persistence in believing in dumbass dreams, don't I?

I give thanks for my hands holding out for a bit more knitting...

I give thanks for the beautiful trees I saw when I was out, for the warmth of the sunshine, for the wind whipped busy sea. For there being room in the recycling skips for what I'd taken there. For there being room on the seats for a rest. I give thanks for remembering to nod and smile and quip as folk tend to expect of me. I give thanks the universe is unfolding the way it should... I give thanks for the opportunities it gives me to grow the way I should.

Phone chop

I give thanks for spending most of yesterday afternoon and evening in a delightfully incapable dozy daze. Sometimes travelling back from treatment dilutes this feeling somehow but not this time, not this time at all ha ha!

I give thanks to Rachel and Darryl for donating six old phones between them to my campaign to collect these for Kidney Research UK to recycle. This is an idea that's been bubbling under for a while but I needed to for it to garner more than the usual polite interest to feel moved to set the ball in motion publicly. You wouldn't think writing a few emails and envelopes, taking some photos and creating a Facebook event page would be so exhausting but that's why more research needs to be done into keeping kidneys healthy...If anyone ever feels moved to write an obit for me, be sure it says I worked tiringly for charity not the usual 'tirelessly'!

I give thanks for an unusually quiet day on the terrace; for completing another square for the blanket I've started to knit for another worthy cause from yarn that seemed to have too much obvious potential to pass on in my purge last week; for lots of lovely groceries from a Tesco driver I've not seen for a while (the very tall one if anyone has been reading this for a very long while!) and for watching a bit of tennis and some of it being a bit good. The good bits are the best as I do nothing but watch and thus, though they are sometimes wearing on the nerves, they are more restful on the body...

Don't look down

I'm grateful that Rachel often comes here to give me acupuncture as by 'eck it's a trek there and back to get it at her clinic...

I'm grateful for the chance to look down on people - from the top of a bus it's all right! I like to practice smiling at them and beaming metta meditation, and am grateful I'm aware how much better I am at compassion when the object's further away or at least muted by music from headphones.

I'm grateful for the moving marbling of cloud shade on the fields, and the vast blue meadow of the sea, the poignancy of pets and gardens as humans attempt to find meaning and expression through other living things.

I'm grateful to Jenny for cleaning while I was out, including the lowest panes of the high up windows so that I can enjoy looking out again. I'm grateful for the soothing sound of wind in the trees and neighbourhood pm peace to enable a long sleep...

I'm grateful for remembering scones in the freezer, the thought of which warmed and topped with sweet creaminess finally got me upright again!

In my own head

I give thanks failing to turn my brain off and sleep for ages but then having a fascinating bunch of dreams with a variety of elements including realising I was sixteen and could leave school, realising there were lots of beautiful clothes in my wardrobe I'd forgotten I had and seeing an image that I was lucid enough to think I might like to recreate though maybe not with words...

I give thanks for a lift to and fro the knitting group from Jenny, a lift up and down the stairs with the tea things there from Linda and milk and some of those lovely Biscoff biscuits from me. I give thanks for an excessively long natter even by our standards, as it's a long time since the three of us have been together and had some catching up and commenting to do. I give thanks for meeting a new lady who on hearing my name asked 'Is that by name and by nature?' which is the joke I always myself so went down well with me!

I give thanks the intention at this stage in the evening is to go to choir, though I've talked more over the last couple of days than I often do in a fortnight, have to go out to travel to Rachel's clinic to get my treatment tomorrow morning and am getting decidedly dozy after my tea so this aim may result in being no more than that. I give thanks I have been singing a bit around the flat lately anyway, and the neighbours are probably glad it's just a line or a phrase here and there where the song inadvertently bursts out of my head. I'm grateful for the novel I'm reading where the narrator and her husband live in adjoining flats...and that my most neighbours don't read this blog or they might get the wrong idea from that indeed.

Really free

I give thanks it's Sunday evening - sometimes weekends can be hard work. I give thanks for understanding it's my perceptions and preferences and desire to understand things make it so, and even the desire to be free from even the desire!

I give thanks for watching the film Samsara yet again. It touches something inside me not normally reached.

I give thanks for a conversation so long I had to climb up a ladder to fetch a replacement phone and down on my hands and knees to plug it in as the battery on the first one couldn't cope. I'm not used to talking (and listening) to such an extent and am not unequivocally converted to the practice but it makes a change from talking to myself... and I'm always grateful for the experience to be equanimous about change.

I give thanks for giving up trying to describe this image and taking a picture to send instead

I give thanks for a sight of a feather riding a thermal all on its own

I give thanks for remembering John Otway and Wild Willy Barratt...

Read and return

Still feeling out of sorts, I gave thanks for a long lavender bath with a book yesterday evening to precede an early night...and that when I got out of the water I felt so much better I stayed up quite late instead. I was grateful immediate neighbours were out or quiet and I was quiet too, even my tinnitus shut up so I could hear the waves breaking on the shore through my open window...

I give thanks for feeling I could have done more with today...surely that's better than feeling you should have done less?

I give thanks for getting some household chores done, watching some tennis and Breaking Bad. I had a longing to do something else which I couldn't so I give thanks for making a shrunk dress longer instead...

I give thanks for hearing someone out in the garden who I saw taken off in an ambulance a couple of days ago and clearly must be OK

I give thanks for a Norwegian phone box library

Half and half

It's been a day of feeling half OK and half not. I think my body's still dealing with this persistent little bug that seems to be going round. A friend is grateful I've got it as she has too and, as she's been camping, was beginning to imagine she might have contracted Lyme disease. Understandably I'm grateful she's got it as if I don't feel well for more than a day or two I can fall foul of all kinds of dire health imaginings...

I'm grateful for some jaw dropping, jump up and down (not literally) and shout at the telly (literally) tennis - a men's match last night and (very unusual for me to get excited about this) a women's match this evening. I give thanks for the way the Wimbledon crowd are always at least half on the side of the underdog no matter how great the favourite on the other side of the net, more so if they have some unusual characteristics like inspired shots or being British of course.

I give thanks for the big beautiful yellow moon last night and for a freezing cold wind today making it easy to come home and rest after blood tests and so on. I give thanks for a chuckle with a cab driver I've not seen for a while.

I give thanks for these rather amusing and clever images each made from two photos...
http://twistedsifter.com/2015/07/stephen-mcmennamy-splits-photos-in-half-combines-results/

Memory foam

I give thanks for another pretty sky last night - sunset painted clouds on one side and on the other a full yellow moon rising through the darkening blue reflected on the sea. What were the skies like when were you were old? Wonder full...

I give thanks for finding my phone and tablet after a puzzled half hour. Then I remembered I'd stopped for a lie down while changing the bedding and yep...after patting the clean stretched fitted sheet I found them tucked underneath!

I give thanks for the aroma of bergamot when opening a fresh pack of Earl Grey

I give thanks for the deep soothing of Tiger Balm on a stiff sore neck and shoulders

I give thanks for Dustin Brown's dreads replayed in slow motion. Like a dark wave breaking wave they are...

Cloud's illusions

After my tea last night my body suddenly seemed to twig quite how much it had done over the last few days and flatly refused to do anymore except allow me to marvel at the pretty evening sky. I gave thanks for the little puffball clouds highlighted in bright rose gold until the sun finally slipped behind the hill. Then they became just dark grey blobs on light grey but when I looked up and saw them seeming white against the darker sky overhead I gave thanks for the fascinating way the contrast gradually changed to a virtual opposite as well.

I gave thanks for paracetamol, a lavender bath and an early night - didn't make a ha'porth of difference to the stiffness, sleepiness and pain but it was another illusion to be grateful for that I had some sort of control... I'm grateful for all the mugginess, as it makes moving little and snoozing loads seem quite normal too.

I'm grateful for all the things I'd done in the last few days when I felt comparatively well - particularly for the advance cooking meaning there's been things ready to heat and eat. Oh and for ice cream in the freezer to cool down!

I'm grateful the BBC red button on Sky is working for Wimbledon....some years you have to do all kinds of strange things to get access to the coverage on different courts. I'm grateful that though there's been some good matches, play has largely been quite subdued due to the weather as I've not felt up to sitting on the edge of my seat.