Eighteen

I give thanks for going to bed at 8pm last night. My body said twelve hours up and about was quite enough, especially as I kept doing stuff, or trying to when it was so very tired. I thought I'd read a book for a while but what actually happened was I soon fell mostly sleep only getting up to decramp my muscles, or fetch sweets etc for my horrid cough until 1am when I gave thanks I woke up enough to take my meds etc... before sleeping loads more til nearly 9 am! I give thanks for my snuggly comfy bed...and my electric shower for getting me clean and awake again.

As you can imagine after all that rest I was bright as a button and raring to go today...or not! All I've wanted to do is lie on the sofa to read and do some internet window shopping, and I give thanks that in between essential chores, plus going downstairs to let in a chap to talk about replacing and mending windows, going downstairs to let in a chap to talk about moving kitchen appliances and cupboards around, and going downstairs to let in a chap to grumble and curse about having to carry shopping upstairs I've mostly done just that. In the lest case I give thanks for offering to help carry what I could but the Tesco driver preferred to carry it all and make a fuss to try to make me feel bad. He dumped the trays on my flat doorstep and then had to wait ages while I carried the groceries bit by bit to the kitchen which I hope gave him time to improve his mood before he went on to the next customer!

I give thanks I think I've finally positioned the book case where it's going to stay and another day, when I've more energy I can give it a polish and start unpacking books. I give thanks trying a test area of the bathroom floor suggests the tiles might respond to a hearty scrub (also another day)  and for having another go at my Council Tax Support application form. This is a long and detailed document and I suspect the fact that I'm currently considered not eligible for means tested benefits means I'll be considered not eligible for that either, even though the former means the latter is all the more needed!

Seventeen

I give thanks for featherlight flatscreen TVs. It would be lovely to get a signal but at least it's not a tremendous effort to lug the set up
 around the various possible aerial outlets searching fruitlessly for one. I give thanks for finally flopping on the sofa with an old recorded Midsomer Murders and the ease of a remote control. Moving home is a wonderful thing, but also a tiring one...and there's been no time for a nap for days!

I give thanks for getting a few hours reasonably restful sleep before muscle cramps and spasms had me tied up in knots and close to tears...and for some rather enjoyable dreams too! For using the wee small morning hours usefully checking out this and that online, including my long awaited BT appointment which I found, to my horror, was not on the afternoon of 13th but on the morning of the 14th. I have no plans for my birthday, other than no plans...no having to do anything, definitely not anything that involves being ready for it at 8 am! So I tried to change my slot, and because last time I tried to do this the engineer turned up for the original one I then rang the company to check I'd done it right - especially when I got a message saying I didn't need an engineer anyway. And apparently I don't. After all that faffing about they've decided they just need to activate the line. I'm grateful for this, I really am... But I could have done without all the hassle over the last couple of months!

Today I gave thanks for lots of rest - even some short snoozes on the interminable bus rides to a different hospital from usual and back. It's not my favourite place but I give thanks all the staff I've encountered there have been delightful, and the people on the last bus of my day were rather lovely too, constantly rearranging themselves to accommodate extra wheelchairs, baby buggies and mounds of shopping!

I give thanks I did some shopping on the way home... discovering Asda was having an extension lead sale, the fancy pants department store had halved the prices of their ethnic pottery and Wilko still had the best value curtain poles. Trying to save the pennies I decided to avoid a delivery charge for the light grey one that had caught my eye and, as it wasn't heavy, bring it home on the bus. It just fitted upright between the floor and the ceiling!

Sixteen

I give thanks for the days when I could do-it-myself, or knew handy men to help instead of paying what seem to me to be rather large amounts of money for not really that much work at all. Today, this included having light bulbs changed and lampshades put up because my ceilings are so tall and I didn't get cable yesterday to pay to have the pendants made longer!

I give thanks I thought the entryphone chaps could fix my kit, but it turned out they couldn't, and of course I had to pay to find out that. And I give thanks I thought I could fix my laptop when it went wrong again, but this time it turned out I couldn't...though at least finding that out was free...

I give thanks for the luxury of an acupuncture treatment in the comfort of my own home last night. It is harder for Rachel to get here now, so the effort was very much appreciated...and it was lovely to see her and to show off my new abode. It meant I started the day feeling mellow anyhow, and I gave thanks for a restful lie in.

I give thanks after the expensive men had gone I took out my frustrations on my little old dining room table. I'd hoped the handy one might find a way to strengthen the wonky leg, but finding parking took too long! As it had been taken apart for moving I thought I'd have a go at putting it back together and wedging it against the wall to stop the wobble, as I'd been doing for years...and, not concentrating, I managed to put all the legs on wrong and had to start again. I give thanks that somehow during re-attaching them I managed to straighten the crooked bolt (causing the loose nut and the wobble) and, apart from the fact I can't do it up super tight, the table is now up and reasonably stable. And, apart from sore hands, that was free too!

Oh and I forgot to say how delighted I was to have my first glimpse of snowdrops by the roadside yesterday. I love snowdrops!

Fifteen

Yay, I give thanks I fixed my laptop's network adapter last night. Go me! I give thanks the night before I made an extra large and rather tasty crumble so I could munch my way through a couple of generous servings while watching Dancing on Ice. I give thanks the woman who bought the freezer said it was working fine. Phew, thank goodness! I only had the word of the people who sold me the flat that is was functional, and they were the same people who said they'd get rid of it and didn't!

I give thanks for having a coughing fit when I rang off to try to cry off my dental appointment this morning so that I didn't have to give any excuse, the receptionist just said 'I hope you feel better soon.' The main reason for cancelling was that because they've stopped my means tested benefits I'd have to pay, and as I only now have a very small income and far less in the bank than they think I have, I'd really rather not. I also needed to go up the hill to the doctor's surgery to see if I could persuade them to start giving me pills and pick up some electrical cable (not from the doctor's) but much of the top of town was cordoned off due to a major gas leak so those ideas fell by the wayside too...

I give thanks my shopping trip with Julie went ahead and we had a good afternoon mooching round various stores including the fabulous Hospice outlet, B&M where neither of us had ever been and for me, finally...after what? fifteen years of waiting?...a visit to IKEA. Well...I feel like a proper grown up now! A spare room and glass goblets from from our favourite Swedish store...whatever next? I know,.a treatment from Rachel

Fourteen

Mmm, I give thanks for a lie in. Not nearly enough of those lately! For abandoning its comforts when the handyman due on Thurs decided Tues would suit him better instead and I wanted to get some bits for him to get handy with. My goodness me I give thanks for living by a railway station as I had to pop into the city and back sharpish to be here for when the freezer was due to be collected.

I give thanks for the glorious weather - warm sunshine to wait in on the platform and the pretty ride along the estuary with low water flat as a sheet of mirror. For a blind for the bathroom, two switch plates and two coax plugs coming to the exact money I got for the freezer! For Wilko for selling practical things on a Sunday you don't need a car to get.

This move feels such a positive one, but whenever I change homes one of my favourite parts is when you find your old stuff fits in new places. Now there's more room in the spare room, I wanted to start making the window end more 'roomy' and wondered if the large rug that was my dining room before might go down on part of the floor. Would you believe it fits lengthways exactly between the skirting boards? How wonderful is that? It's not a particularly pretty carpet but nicer underfoot than the stuff that's down I can't afford to change just yet...

I give thanks for finishing sorting that out in time for a quick sit down before popping to the Co op before it closed. I give thanks for being able to 'pop to the Co-op'. The last couple of years has been such a long hard struggle but it was worth it to get to a comfier way of life at last... Mind you the tourist season is starting up again with coaches arriving and disgorging outside my door. I may feel rather differently in a while...

Thirteen

I give thanks I could have a siesta before my lunch today as two busy days out and about, two nights disturbed by cramps and pain and a hectic morning preparing my on sale items for buyers, chasing them, waiting...sorting out alternative possibilities..and battling once again to establish an account with the electricity provider here left me rather limp and in need of a snooze. I give thanks for eventual partial success in these endeavours - one thing gone, another allegedly going tomorrow, and a customer service advisor speaking good English, with good listening skills and apparent knowledge of the system saying he didn't know why his colleagues had said what they did but would (allegedly) put me down as the new resident here.

I give thanks, though the snow has left the windows filthy dirty, the sun could stream through and keep me cosy on the sofa while I slept. Oh, and I give great thanks for no one walking and talking above my head as well!

Plan A for the rest of the weekend had been to organise the heaps of stored possessions in the spare room a little, especially as they'd got extra messy sorting out the stuff to sell. I give thanks for doing as much as I could, accepting I need help for for some tasks and/or it will take a whole lot longer than I hoped. For stopping often enough and soon enough (I hope) not to suffer too much later on.

I give thanks for the pretty tinted clouds at sunset. For plans to make a crumble with some of my half a bag of flour after sharing it with the nice lady in the health food shop who also mostly cooks for one.

Twelve

Blimey O'Reilly! You know those safety warnings about getting too close high seas breaking on shore? Well to catch the train here you have to duck underneath them or scuttle behind the waiting room door as they crash over the building on the other side of the track and land on the platform beside you! I give thanks I like this sort of thing.. and for it reminding of taking my young son out on the jetty at Aberystwyth to play chicken with the waves. I have been told often enough now this was irresponsible maternal behaviour now, thank you...don't forget it is also irresistible fun and demonstrated the importance of a little light risk taking now and then to get your kicks for a father free boy who didn't play sport. Good comeback at the eh? Shame I didn't think of it at the time...

I always try to combine a hospital trip with something else to make the most of the journeying and to take the taste of the treatment fear away, and yesterday gave thanks for this time acquiring some cheap shelf brackets and a length of curtain track for the kitchen window. I was tempted by a blind for the bathroom but can't afford to buy or manage to carry everything at once plus I thought the track would survive the wind and rain better. Besides it made for some double takes and jolly quips at the clinic arriving like Nanook of the North with a length of white plastic instead of a fishing spear. I always think if I make everyone laugh they'll take my high spirits into account when assessing the state of my health. OK, I know they don't really...but you do have to be feeling pretty good physically to traipse around the county in freezing rain on foot and bus and train arrive still in reasonable humour. There are many days I couldn't so I give thanks it was a day I could.

I give thanks the consultant declared fish and chips on the way home a good idea, and for winning a game of public transport roulette putting my efforts into getting straight to a particular bus stop instead of checking to see if a bus might be meant to be there or if an alternative route might make more sense. I could see it as I turned the corner in the dusk and driving snow....and I give great thanks for a slow moving queue of passengers so I had time to hobble to the end!

Today I've been mostly very tired, very sore...and very busy, so I give thanks for all I've got done. For the black swans on a little white island this morning, and for the roads and pavements I went on being clear. It's been an unusually communicative day for me, and I give thanks at the face to face bit at the Revive meeting being closest to Jenny and Jo for easy chat. Jo has just had an offer accepted on a bungalow and I give thanks for Jenny suggesting she might like my boxes as I empty them. Not been a lot of that today, but I may have found people to pay me to take away stuff the previous occupants left behind, which would make up nicely or the estate agents mucking up their removal...