Shouldering on

I give thanks for Alan Bennett's musings and journal extracts, first discovered accidentally when I saw Untold Stories  in a charity shop some years ago and, not surprisingly, felt a deep affinity with his thoughts regarding his health situation... despite so many obvious differences in our lives. Sometimes something he writes makes me think 'Oh, me too!' Today, in Keeping On Keeping On, it was a line about the glorious almost empty world one sees from train windows (or the top deck of buses). Something about the glass screen and the passing by, makes even the inhabitants one does spot seem quite unreal. I find it both moving and meditative. It's a way to glimpse the illusion of 'reality' and a comforting and unexpected plus to the minus of not having a car.

I give thanks for remembering to remind myself of this trudging through showers with shopping and prescriptions in a heavy bag that kept slipping down my cagoule sleeve from my shoulder and landing on my stitched up elbow crease. Most unpleasant! And if that wasn't nuisance enough, putting the hood up caused a favourite one off ear ring to leap from my lobe and lose itself. I give thanks this is clearly a sign I should treat myself to a new pair!

I give thanks for having a strange urge to scrub and sort this morning while both arms were fairly usable.  I guess it's not so strange...I'm aware more pain and incapacity is on the way, plus having a blood test yesterday and knowing how dodgy things are, I felt like I should have the place spick and span for either urgent hospital admittance or skipping off somewhere for a little escape while able...or maybe even a flat viewer while I'm not around. I'm not sure where that last thought came from but I'd just finished the bathroom and kitchen and got everything out of the cupboard under the stairs to access warmer clothing for cooler times, when the phone rang. Imagine my surprise when it wasn't a call about medical melodrama but an estate agent wanting to bring someone this afternoon!

I give thanks for tea and delicious buttercream filled ginger cake with Mima while they did. For not having any hope or expectation regarding the outcome, just aporeciating a very clean and tidy home this evening...