Pastoral

I'm grateful today for bright and breezy weather. A good day for all kinds of activities I'm sure. If I had a choice I'd like to be up on a hill with a wide view of countryside watching the cloud shadows chasing across the fields.

The sea was dark blue and purple earlier on with lots of tiny white polka dot flecks but it's getting paler now. I give thanks for all the different sorts of sea I see.

The breeze blew waves of drum sound to and fro earlier...and also some bluesy harmonica up from the town (as far as I could tell). I thought it might be the folk festival but the internet says that finished last week...maybe one of the little pub festivals we have here. Whatever it was sounded good and I'm grateful, but kitten weak today so must merely remember and dream...

Never mind, I'm grateful for Wimbledon to keep me company and the sofa to give me a hug. And I give thanks I've done some cooking for one, which is often more taxing than cooking for two, as some of you may know!

I'm grateful to Laura and Jenny for help with the chores...They don't do it out of the goodness of their hearts obviously but they are good hearted enough to include a little pastoral care in their duties...

Whether the weather

What's with all this weather moaning we British love to do? Maybe it's just people I have in my friends list but the majority of posts I see on Facebook are about alcohol and weather...oh and 'inspirational quotes' about which I could probably summon a grumble or two! 'Changeable' it may be, but of the time in the UK climate never gets beyond the state of inconvenient... Campsites may be washed away but not whole villages. Garden parties and barbeques might ruined but not all the crops ie the food for a region. Obviously I have a different perspective as the sun shone brilliantly all the while I was outdoors yesterday...and I was grateful for that...and then it clouded over when I went indoors and that was splendid too! OK, I admit it, as a weather god I find it hard to empathise with you puny humans, but I do sometimes get a bit peeved you don't all appreciate all that my colleagues do for your entertainment...Hmmm...note to self: I must not be negative about other people's lack of positivity PLUS it does give us something to overcome our natural reserve and talk to strangers about. Nonetheless I bid you remember...

this is amusing http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18461189

but this is devastating http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-18639529

Anyway, I give thanks that my own personal micro climate extended to encompass some rather random people on the beach as the tide retreated... including a young woman taking her lilac beehive hairdo for a stroll and a leathery, long bearded middle aged male in floral pastel board shorts.

I give thanks for two new second hand books from Amazon about knitting and crocheting trims...brain cells and fingers twitching...

For great acupuncture and chat with Rachel who had some news to impart to some of her clients and was finding the chosen few had already read her mind...

For all the lovely fresh fruit available in my local greengrocers and the lovely lady who sells it

For scenic shots of sunset over London as Wimbledon ran late into the day yesterday...oh and some good tennis too!

What Mr Cale said

I've been giving thanks for all the weather changes. It's so easy to dismiss changeable weather as being all the same...but hey, you know what J JCale's views on the subject were and I'm with him! Thick fog rolled in last night...gradually the hillsides and sea glimpses disappeared...I love the feeling of close mystery it gives you, of the familiar being so transformed. Then in the night we had lightning and thunder and I woke up to the windows wet with rain. This morning it's clammy but not cold and the low cloud is bright with sunshine behind it...could go either way! I'm grateful that whatever it does I will experience first hand as I've acupuncture to go to later...

I give thanks for making my double bed and the single one in the lounge. I give thanks for the strength and the sheets and covers and for having the choice of two resting places...and I give thanks for the resting on one afterwards! I'm grateful that my neighbour upstairs had company last night but didn't play loud music, shout, scream or throw furniture around and that the drummer boy across the way started early as he hasn't been playing so much of late and I'd been thinking he might have a new hobby/girlfriend/injury/home. He IS good...Carol would be inspired I'm sure.

I also give thanks for the instalment method of tackling all tasks that can be tackled this way. I seem to be managing a few more, or more taxing instalments of late but the rests in between are still much required and appreciated...

Bumming around

After a rough night with bodily ills and mental misery I've been revelling in a bit of a Waynetta Wednesday. I've been sleeping in the living room as I've been trying to get a bit of skirting board in the bedroom painted and though it's not actually in the way of any bedroom processes, the rolled back carpet is. So today, when I'd finally woken up enough to attend to my mail and personal maintenance and pull on some clothes and lightly sand and apply the last coat...I could not be bothered to remake to sofa bed properly and just lounged about on a roughly arranged pile of covers and cushions. Shock horror! My mother would turn in her grave I'm sure. My son however might notice anything was actually awry. Is it a generational thing? I'm caught in the middle if so for sure!

Other delights of the last twenty four hours or so include...

*A police helicopter executing a very impressive static hover over the town and glinting in the evening sun

*Some rather tasty fruit and nut muesli from Lidl

*That I finally got to see Dustin Brown play tennis. (This sentence works just fine without the last two words)

*Feeling I've been being useful doing some reviewing for Cancer Research

*Feeling I've done something passable to decorate the plain side of the first kitchen chair pad. Not perfect...but who do you know who has eyes in their bum?

Your precious

Today I'm going to be grateful on behalf of people that I know...

For a man who seems to have found the right woman at last; for a young couple expecting their first child; for an older pair with a garden they are giving a makeover; for a chap off on holiday with good friends; for the girl next door for whom the earth moves so resoundingly; for everyone who has a vehicle to move them to and fro, a pet or two for comfort...grandchildren for continuity...and at least one person who knows them well and loves them anyway!

These are very precious things and I give thanks that you are blessed with them...Long may your good fortune continue...

How many shades of grey?

You can have black out and white out...can you have grey out?
This is what the sky and sea looked like yesterday. Actually it was quite clement and pleasant and dazed strangers accosted each other to share astonished glee!





This one shows the kinds of tankers and motorboats I was talking about yesterday. Of course the perspective completely negates the effect I had when seeing both from the same distance away...



This morning I had a long chat with a very pleasant lady from Love Productions who (sadly? happily?) informed me I was not what she was looking for. No, I'm not trying to kick start a new career in alternative porn. She's trying to put together a documentary about people who are terminally ill, and people who aren't any more (for whatever reason) are excluded. Oh how bothersome...I thought fame was at my fingertips. I'll just have to use them to bang out a best seller afterall. It was grateful for the opportunity to hold forth on a subject dear to my heart nonetheless and if anyone knows anyone they think might be willing to take part then let me know and I'll send you more info. Whilst on the subject...I would like to send good wishes to Estelle who was putting together a book, wherever and however she may be. This cancer business can play havoc with one's creative intentions...

I give thanks too for another chat with the stoma team who have given me more suggestions and an appointment next week. I get the impression they are getting a little exasperated with my wilful refusal to make bags stick every time but, in all fairness to all products and participants, an intermittent problem is often the hardest both to cope with and resolve. I give thanks for their perseverance and that, although embarrassing and inconvenient, the situation is not made worse by currently trying to hold down a job or tend an infant child...or (I've just thought of this) trying to potty train one ha ha!

I'm grateful for pancakes with lemon and sugar, for my washing machine and laptop. For clean clothes. For having a change of hear regarding the applique design. I'm cautiously optimistic plan B will be easier to execute. For Wimbledon on TV...and to my mother, who failed to impart so many useful life skills, but who showed me you could enjoy tennis with no skills in that department either.

What's the point?

Today I give thanks for a great trip to the doctor. No, I've not suddenly become fascinated by the state of my health but I was pleased to be able to get a double slot on a day the lovely Dr Chowdrey was duty doctor (she's booked a couple of weeks ahead otherwise). My joints were hurting and by my own special logic this seemed a good reason to walk there...ie. if I'm already in pain, I might as well do something that would cause some anyway plus I had a very sedentary afternoon (or thirteen!) planned...

Anyway, as the sea came into view just down the hill I could see one of those little white half shelter motor boats loitering in the channel beyond the pier. Funny place to stop I thought...then a large and purposefully moving tanker came into view heading into port. My, did that little boat move! I wonder if it thought it was in the nautical equivalent of a layby? Much gratitude for being in the right place at the right time anyway...and for the tanker being an unusually attractive shade of turquoise blue...

The doctor and I had a number of things to discuss and discuss them we did, during the course of which I realised Dr Galli had not merely been diplomatic when he said she was an excellent choice as 'my' new GP. I particularly like her attitude to prescribing medication...'You won't want to take that - I know I wouldn't!' and to TCM (traditional Chinese medicine). Turns out she has trained in Western medical acupuncture and wishes that NHS medical practice gave her time to practise it...so more to be grateful for there. I have some pills to try for one thing and some more on the way for something else now the head of nephrology has had her say, and I give thanks for that...though I'd be much more grateful not to have the things or pills at all, of course!

When I got home I had a bit of lunch, and watched a bit of tennis, and did a bit of knitting, and had a bit of a nap. I woke up from that with no desire to move at all and so I've spent the last couple of hours just lying here doing completely pointless things on my tablet phone. I give great thanks for idleness and lack of purpose...every home should have some!

On reflection

First thanks of the day goes to realising of course it doesn't matter that the applique pattern I was trying to make was coming out skewhiff as of course the sewing will too! No sacred geometry possible with a cheap old pair of plastic compasses. Would have been as easy to draw round a compass...was anyone else of a certain age beaten about the head with a 'rule' for not calling school tools by the correct name, I wonder?

Sorry for being a bit of a misery yesterday. Sometimes, as we all do, I get a bit frustrated with things...and sometimes some things set up a poignant longing. Laura wanted plants yesterday so we went to the garden sections of the diy stores. Like a diabetic in a candy store I was!

Today I also give thanks for...

the smell of carnations

savasana

a couple of small meals eaten

a couple of short sessions with the filler knife

for all the pictures of the Dalai Lama smiling with people around the UK. I particularly like the ones of him in Scotland wearing a tartan scarf!





and for this one of Bob as a baby taken by a chap called Norman I haven't seen for years and re formatted recently by Ivor

In the pink

Well, there's something to be grateful for in hardly eating anything yesterday because when I went into the kitchen this morning there was no washing up!! I'm still not quite hungry yet but I'm optimistic I might have a spot of late lunch when I work out what it might be...

I'm grateful to Laura for the trip to the big shops. Big is a relative word here but they seemed enormous to walk round to me...and I know walking round them with me must be a terrible trial as I'm slow and can't carry much, keep wanting the loo and saying the wrong sort of things. I do try to act 'normal' but the real me keeps poking through and as I don't mind the real me nearly as much as everyone else I admit I probably don't try as hard as I could... I'm grateful for anyone who can manage a bit of tolerance...

I'm very grateful we got a can of Feather Down as it's being discontinued in those stores...and we haven't finished using it in the bedroom yet. I was astonished by the amount of food I bought in Lidl. I though I would be safe from rampant shopping considering I still didn't feel like eating, but it's mostly store cupboard things that will keep so I give thanks for the opportunity. I'm grateful I had a couple more oatcakes and a piece of rye bread with avocado during the evening so some nourishment went in before the big sleep set in. Up until the last few years I was always active and used to lecture those who weren't that they would feel so much more energetic and brighter in spirits if they were too. Nowadays in the short term any kind of exercise beyond the most basic can result in breathlessness and pounding heart, and in the longer for needing to sleep for hours and various pains and problems which can actually make me more miserable than when I started. After four trips into the outside world this week I've needed almost twenty four hours to recover! Never mind...I give thanks for comfyness and quiet to do it in, a warm bath so soothe and a book to cheer. It is an effort of will sometimes to remember I'm lucky that I was fit and well for so much of my life...and I'm grateful when I achieve it.

I'm grateful for the sight of racing drivers being strapped into their cars. It always looks to me as if the person doing it would ruffle their hair and chuck them under their chins given half a chance and no helmets. For the mystery of a cerise pink bra on the table where the post ends up. Oh, and I'm grateful to Lynn for reminding me I can still try to be useful sometimes.

Tasty, tasty

First of all I have to give thanks for one of my favourite things of all yesterday evening...leisure and pleasure after acupuncture. If I have a good session I like to savour the flavour not deal with anything serious or sensible. I managed to get my odds and ends done before the treatment and all I did afterwards was come home and c-h-i-l-l!

I caught up with some TV and had some tea and I'm very thankful I had a meal because I cannot face food beyond an oatcake today. Never mind...I can live off my fat for while I reckon!

Have any of you been watching the house that the 50s Built? It's very entertaining for its Boy's Own approach to the science, but if you remember or admire the designs as well I heartily recommend it I'm rather partial to a bit of 'retro' or 'vintage' myself and am fascinated by the blurry borders between these exalted states and 'old' and 'old fashioned'...As my family were slow to catch up with the trends that started in the 50s, I was of an age to pay attention to the stylistic changes as they came...oh, and have a stylistic opinion of course! Very infuriating for my family, I'm sure... The presenter was telling us about James Spangler who invented a portable electric vacuum cleaner and was saying if he'd been the one to commercialise the idea we'd talk about spanglering the carpets and rugs...or was it spangling? Made me chuckle anyhow.

I give thanks I've a better idea for how the neck shaping of my cardigan should go after knitting a few rows of theirs. I already changed the cuffs and lower sleeve and have some thoughts about the fastening too, See above. Either I've a strong sense of taste or I'm just plain fussy...one or the other! I give thanks for my second new sheet set which I've just finished laundering. I couldn't get one just like the first but this is the same colour just with embroidery trim rather than pintucks. The embroidery is two close toned intertwined rows of leaves. Looks great with the two toned leafy wallpaper. Uh-oh, I'm off again aren't I?

I'm grateful that Laura has offered me a quick trip to the out of town stores and I've done some internet recce as to which one has the best deals on paint just now. Time for a quick spearmint and chamomile tea and maybe another oatcake methinks...

In the bag!

I give thanks for giving up on 'putting my bedroom back together' yesterday evening as instead I made a spinach and feta fillo pie and went to bed on the sofa just after 8 pm with cop chases and Julian Clary and a bowl of lemon curd ice cream. Tesco had a special offer on if you bought two of their Finest and they were out of the other one I chose so I'll have to eat more of this one (sigh!) The cosiness of this scenario was much enhanced by the sounds of teeming rain so I give thanks for that as well.

I'm all for a bit of constructive giving up, as I've said before. There's a hierarchy of 'right times' to do things and if you're attempting something at the lowest levels of this, and have the luxury of trying again when auspices are better then don't beat yourself harder or beat yourself up...make a tactical retreat to bed with ice cream (or whatever seems the better option at the time). Save your teeth gritting stamina and perseverance for when it really matters.


Regular readers may remember I 'gave up' on remodelling a shopping bag not long ago. Well, I'm grateful I didn't throw it into the bin in a hissy fit....because I had another couple of sessions at more capable times and produced this. Actually looks better than the original in my humble, but crucial, opinion...as well as functioning better. I like using my sewing machine as, although the prep might be a bit of a struggle when I'm actually sewing it I can feel just like the person I was before so many bits of me went wrong.


I give thanks for a comfy night and a long lie in. For reclaiming my sink and kitchen work surfaces from under the debris of yesterday. And giving my washing up bowl a scrub. White vinegar and bicarbonate of soda...comes up a treat! I give thanks for my trusty washing machine for tackling another load and for the Co-op's eco laundry liquid which smells nicer than their eco powder and is easier for me to use. It even fits down beside the washing machine.

I'm grateful I've remade the sofa bed and reclaimed the bed one and washed my hair which is a surprisingly energetic activity I can tell you! I've had numerous breaks between these pursuits to preserve enough get up and go to get up and go to the doctor's and for acupuncture shortly and am very grateful I have leftovers for my tea so I can lounge around again when I get home!

Agape

First of all I give thanks to my friend's husband for making their Christmas gift chutney too hot for me as the 'Thai green curry' sauce I had in my Tesco delivery was so insipid it needed something to spice it up! Yes, I know I should have known better regarding the sauce but one lives in hope that something 'convenient' will also be tasty, and it is worth trying things now and then as once in a while they are.

I’m grateful that my upstairs neighbour came home in the night for a sesh with her stereo AND I had joint pain too severe to sleep. Two wrongs might not make a right but if I was going to be awake with one it was no particular hardship to be awake for the other as well. I give thanks for earplugs, paracetamol and relaxation techniques that eventually had me drifting off and for having nothing alarm clock urgent to do today so I could catch up with the zzzzs late into the day.

When I did stir I gave thanks that I’ve gone back to BT for my calls so the display functions are working on my phone and I could see I’d missed an early one from a mobile I didn’t recognise. There was no message so I thought this was just a random who had realised their mistake at my answer machine greeting. I made a cuppa and farted around writing an earlier version of my blog for my tablet phone to eat...and then started on the business of the day, calling the medical supply company to see if there was any news regarding the order I placed last week. ‘Oh yes,’ said the lady on the other end, ‘it says here it was out for delivery this morning’. I’d been told they would tell customers when supplies were in to arrange a delivery day so this was a tad exasperating so I rang the mobile number to see if the chap was still in the area, not confident as it was more than a couple of hours before...and he said ‘Well, it said on the package to ring you, but you didn’t answer so I left it on the doorstep’! Where do they get these people??? Luckily in the meantime another neighbour had brought it indoors but I think we’ll give up on this particular supply chain don’t you? I am very grateful to receive my box of tricks anyway...since I’m still suffering from some trickiness in that department.

I’m grateful for getting a few of my in town chores done today...while there were some glimmers of sunshine about...and for managing not to ‘wet myself’ until almost home. Yes, I KNOW this shouldn’t be happening, and yes, we are all trying to make it stop, so spare your typing breath, OK? I'm grateful to Laura for some help with scraping and sanding and paint prepping bits of wall in my bedroom this afternoon and most of all I'm grateful I've almost finished what ought to be done today and can just get a plate of supper and a sofa full of rest!

Finally I thought I’d share this conundrum with you...There was a tanker ‘parked up’ in sight of my bedroom window most of the day, yesterday. Nothing particularly unusual about that, except that, at some point it opened the big red doors to its hold and kept them vertical for hours. Now, usually that happens only if there’s some loading or unloading going on...so...Had they been unloading flying fish or birds? Or swimming stowaways? Were the crew sunbathing au naturel and worried about frightening (or enticing) other sailors in the bay? Or...I don’t know if this sounds absurdly domestic...but were they simply giving the place a bit of an air in the sunshine? Loading up sunshine and fresh air... Answers on a seagull I think, please.

I don’t think this is connected...but it’s kind of touching anyway... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-18495186

Close encounter

Top gratitude to Judith for being an excellent hostess...lovely food and laughter to share, guided tours and completely unfazed by my 'collection device' deciding to donate rather than collect whilst sitting next to her!



The moor was delightfully pretty in the sunshine and scudding clouds and my joints and muscles ache today as if I strode across it when actually I did not. I made it on foot to the station though and for a potter around the picturesque little town. I was looking for photos to take that were 'a little bit different' from the usual picture postcard shots and I thought you might like this, taken looking upwards in a very narrow lane...

I give thanks for another sunny day. For the sound of a fly buzzing around the window. Yes I know it can get annoying after a while but how nice for the fly to have his coat and jumper off and be able to flap his wings for a change. For the quintessential summeryness of the noise. For the chance be outside for twenty minutes or so when I had to go out to post a letter and combined it with a sit in the damp grassed but breeze sheltered communal gardens. I give thanks for a chat with the nice people from next door and the good natured Tesco delivery man who was looking forward to cloud and rain again I think...he said it was hot in the van. It's always worth remembering whatever weather you think is just what you want, someone else may think something else again.

The thing that has moved me most in the last twenty four hours though was part of a documentary I watched about an autistic man unable to talk or behave in a 'normal' way and who had been diagnosed at different times as severely retarded, schizophrenic and clinically insane. He was given a special kind of typewriter to communicate and was found to be both intelligent and very emotionally aware of his situation and how difficult it was for others to understand and relate to him! OK, better not get back on your chair just yet if this kind of thing is news to you too... He also made friends with another man with severe autism who communicated the same way and they went out and about together for recreation and to educate others. They said that people without autism didn't understand that those with it did actually like to form close bonds and they found their friendship very enriching. You know what a softy I am...I wept at this. These men (and how many others?) had been locked inside their condition, and institutions for many years. All the communication and interaction we take for granted out of reach. I remembered Wilhelmina, one of those I used to support when I worked for Social Services. There were odd moments when we'd catch each other's eye and I'd think there was someone else inside her head from the one those around her perceived. Maybe there was. I give thanks for all the special souls I met there. May they be happy, may they be well, may they be at peace.

Symptomatic

I gave thanks last night for a bath full of rainbow shine bubbles to soak away the toils and troubles of the day

...for the captivating autobiography I'm reading, packed full of the domestic historical detail I enjoy

...and for the two above simultaneously...especial bliss!

I'm grateful that, although I've been finding it so hard to stay cosy in the day, it has been warmer the last couple of nights and I've been able to have my window open while I sleep. I used to find this helped me wake up more refreshed but nowadays I wake up ready for more sleep! I understand the drowsiness is a symptom of my disease and all I can do is give thanks that I have so many opportunities to indulge it. As anyone battling illness knows, there are far more serious and troubling things to deal with that wanting to doze away the day and I'm grateful that although I'm not physically free of pain and irritation I can mostly mentally 'put it to one side'. The tinnitus is the hardest to ignore as it's there when nothing else is if you know what I mean! I've only recently discovered that, according to Chinese medicine, tinnitus is expected when kidney function deteriorates. Western medicine does occasionally make reference to it as an effect of anaemia or blood pressure problems so that figures I suppose. There is no treatment per se of course but I find being by the ocean or a computer fan good substitution therapy for my particular background noise.

I'm grateful that, so far today the sun has been shining and the sea and sky mostly blue. I'm off to meet Judith who will take me up to where she lives on Dartmoor. Haven't been up there for a while so looking forward to the outing. I'm also delighted she's also agreed to stop off at Argos on the way where I have reserved a couple of small items...a new cheap phone to replace the one I lost the other day and one black proper Epson printer ink cartridge just in case the elderly and non-Epson ones I'm using are to blame for the current problems I'm having. They were fine for years....but one has to suspect 'years' in that statement might be the clue to the problem...

As it's not raining torrentially nor blowing a gale, I plan to take one of my slow walks down to the station so I had better get a move on before the bustling about with pre-departure chores rendered me ready or another rest! May you all have as pleasant a day as your circumstances and state of mind allow. May you be well, may you be happy, may you be at peace.

For fathers

Well, I'm grateful that when I began to doze in the afternoon I pressed pause on the tennis first. Nothing the matter with the match, it was me - I just couldn't get warm and I couldn't keep my eyes open after doing the this and that required of me. But, as you might have heard, the match didn't end the way they usually do...nor last as long as it might and if I'd woken up without recording I'd have wondered what I missed. My heart went out to everyone involved...including the officials trying to work out what to do. And I thought I was having a bit of a bad day...

Feeling rather out of sorts what with one thing and another I sought solace in the father figures perhaps of the Dalai Lama and Nicholas Parsons. I love that the former chose Russell Brand to introduce him to the stage in Manchester. I'd heard about it and didn't especially get it, but when I saw them together it made a particular kind of visual sense...or was that just me? And Mr Parsons made me laugh as compere on the delightful Just a Minute and moved me by reciting the Owl and the Pussycat all the way through...

I hope that everyone with fathers thought of them with fondness today. I wish I'd known mine better...

Fringe benefits

I give thanks for a great afternoon with Clive yesterday...we particularly had a laugh with one of my ex-alopecia wigs which I had a feeling would rather suit him. And it so did that he took it home with him for fancy dress/amusing friends and family. It was always my favourite because it just looked like hair...not a hairstyle... I'll be wanting it back if my hair falls out again!



That's what it looked like on me...





...and this is what it looked like on him!









He did some little jobs for me about the place and I was going to do some mending for him on the sewing machine but he forgot to bring the things! So when he left I had a bit of a session catching up with some sewing jobs of my own along with a few rows of knitting my cardigan as I watched the tennis. I've done both sleeves and the back now and started on one of the fronts.

In the evening I heard from someone who was looking for some pebbles for her garden that it was a good time to pick up the ones that someone else no longer wanted today. I was very grateful I'd been able to help reorganise ownership of same and looking forward to seeing the participants in the process but the pebble seeker called the whole thing off this afternoon as they are not as big as she hoped and I was left with the feeling, wrong or not, that others were feeling I'd done something wrong. It's easy to think in situations like that that it's best not to try to be helpful, but I think the trick is to try harder, don't you?

There is a plus side for me in that I was bustling about later last night and earlier this morning than normally I would be, getting necessary things done even if it turned out some of them didn't need to be! I give thanks for that, and also the very unnecessary long soak in the bath with the first pages of Muriel Spark's autobiography which I found in a second hand book shop the other day and took a fancy to. I'm grateful I've been able to finish my latest letter to Kostas and write this post (at least twenty percent of words of which have had to be retyped as my fingers are very unco-operative today) and win another fight with the printer which I fear has lost the will to print! It also means I could watch the final of the tennis which I hope will prove entertaining...and prepare for tomorrow when I'm going out to meet someone else (I think!)

Rowing against the flow

Well, the acupuncture was good for my soul but my body needed much resting yesterday. I didn't wake up til ten and was grateful I had nothing to do, taking two or three hours to get properly up and dressed during which time I had a message from Peter suggesting he came over in the late afternoon on the way back from his dentists. We went down to look at the waves which were not very wavy by then but good to be closer to nonetheless. There were little wavelets still curving spray over the rocks at the base of the headland and the edge of the carpark we were in, but the tide was turning and a couple of the rowing teams took their boats out into the channel where the current is really strong and fought against it for a while apparently just for the exercise before moving sideways to the gentler flow and disappearing from view back up river. I give thanks for having my cobwebs blown away to work up an appetite for a tea of gorgonzola and pear and walnut salad (recipe on request!). I know Peter is fond of crumble so I suggested he make one with the rhubarb I had and he did! Mmmm, multiple thanks for good food and company and making and eating food in company. He even did the washing up so when he left about ten I could go straight to bed. Very luxurious...

Last night Clive also confirmed that he was coming over today. (Yes my friends are indeed like buses!) We'd originally thought chips on the beach might be nice but it's not the best of weather for that so I offered to make us some lunch here. I was lying in bed wondering what I could create with what there was in the flat and when I went to make my morning cuppa I 'found' the little bowl of cooked potato chunks left over from last night. I'd deliberately done too many and as soon as I saw them I thought they will go very well in an omelette with some chopped peppers and onion. So much gratitude for my foresight whilst preparing a meal for two last night that was already a menu created by a subconscious urge to buy the 'wrong' cheese...sometimes you can actually see the method in my madness! I give thanks for the times when it is abundantly clear you can rest the oars and go with the flow not strenuously row against it....they always make me polish my glasses and look for more...

I am very grateful for my friends. I feel very blessed that sometimes people actually choose my company, especially those for whom I don't have to try to be company if you know what I mean. I'm sure you do...this is normal life for most people isn't it? Or so I'm led to believe...

Oooh, and I almost forgot...I give thanks for ion and grumpy's lists of ways to 'Mock the big 'C''. If you know what I'm talking about you know where to look...

Running commentary

I give thanks for all the splendid weather we've been having lately. Splendid if you're snug indoors up a hill, and love howling wind and the spatter of rain on double glazing...which I do. Most of all I'm grateful for living in sight and sound of the sea. I enjoy it when I can hear the soothing lapping of waves at night when other noises are quietened but the muted roar when the when the windows are locked tight shut stirs my soul and draws me to look. Today the sea looked grey at first but there were little patches of sparkling turquoise racing across when the sun's rays found their way through gaps in the scudding clouds. Then later as the wind got up again more turquoise and more white flecks to the wave tops but streaks or purply brown where weed and debris has been churned up. The trees are doing their Jethro Tull thing again and it's all so beautiful to me!

I give thanks to Bob for sending me his Potatoes Dauphinoise recipe as a) I know it is exceedingly delicious and b) it's written in a similar way to my cookie one a while ago without measurements but with hints and tips! I had a bit of go last night and it was OK but not as scrummy as I would have liked so I thought I'd send for assistance from someone who's tried out a few versions already.

I give thanks for glimpses of the rather friendly, intimate atmosphere at Queens...a player chatting to the ballgirl holding an umbrella over him as he sits waiting for a shower of rain to pass over Although the club has been there for many years of course, the big blue stands are temporary structures put up for the tournament and the site is all very small scale and personal. I'm so glad I've been, and to Wimbledon too. Although that is a much larger complex now it still retains a homely feel. It does feel odd though when you're used to watching tennis on TV and you are there in the crowd and there's no commentary!

I give thanks to Rachel for a particularly good treatment yesterday, that really hit the spiritual spot. Sometimes after acupuncture I have a sense of all the other ways of being there may be. It's hard to put this into words, but some ways of being are beyond them...that's the point!

Cheesy whatsits

This morning I had a appointment at the dentist, then one at the opticians and then one for acupuncture at one. The first two were beset by delays and I ended trying to do my shopping after my treatment which is never a good plan as the warm fuzzy light in the head feeling is not conducive to anything very constructive. I'm grateful for the warm fuzziness, you understand, and for having the wherewithal to get some odds and ends but best to keep them separate! Luckily many of the local shopkeepers are used to me. Some know Rachel and some probably think I'm always like that, but they try to ensure I leave their premises with whatever I came in for plus whatever I brought with me. Nonetheless...the man in the cheese shop would have no way of knowing I meant gruyere when what I actually said was gorgonzola! It didn't dawn on me til I was almost home. Never mind...because I also meant to buy stilton (and forgot I hadn't) I did buy pears because they go so well together in a salad...so the gorgonzola will as well! I was grateful for the cute and practical'broccoli for one' size heads in the greengrocers and for the owner there and in the ironmongers both remarking on how bitterly cold it was, as it stopped me feeling such a wimp in hat and scarf and so on. I also give thanks, as ever, that I live somewhere with greengrocers, ironmongers and cheese shops and so on...and staff who talk to you.

Cooking for one you're often in the state of 'using things up', and sometimes when another singleton comes over I see if they'd like to share. I was trying to think what I could put half a tub of cream in to share with Laura (I'd ordered a small one and Tesco had 'substituted' double the quantity) when she started reminding me of all the things I could cook with it. I tend not to cook with cream but to pour it on things - cooked or raw fruit mostly. But of course I started thinking about Potatoes Dauphinoise. I've never actually made my own and would have been put off by the slicing with my damaged hands...until I remembered a so far unused blade on the food processor I bought last year. It's amazing how many recipes there are for such a simple dish but the one I'd intended to loosely base my first attempt on had gruyere in. Now it won't...but it will have immaculately sliced potatoes!

I give thanks for tennis 'back' on the BBC. I enjoy it so much more with Go Compare or EDF every few mins...

I'm grateful for Manfred Sauer sending me a pre-paid label to send my unused nephrostomy bags for use in demonstrations. I hate waste but I didn't think they'd actually pay for me not to!

I'm grateful that Carol has found the blog posts she was missing ('missing' is her word not mine!)

And for the fact that the sea yesterday that was actually blue...not grey or simply invisible. Yes, science buffs, I do know the sea isn't actually blue. But then again neither is gorgonzola!

Summer cold

Is it me or has it been really cold in the night? I go to bed quite snug, and very comfy under my summer weight quilt and pretty quilted bedspread but I wake up freezing in the early hours! This morning I added a layer of throw on the top and slept through til 5 but was woken up by the cold and a noisy waterfall from an over flowing gutter outside my bedroom window. Shutting the window diminished the sounds but I didn't get cosy enough to go back to sleep till I'd pulled a thick fluffy dressing gown over the top of me as well. I'm still grateful I managed to find a summer home for my winter duvet and look forward to putting this wintry weather away as well!

I'm grateful (Oh so grateful!) that I've managed to win a bit of a battle that I've been having with my printer the last few weeks. I'd been thinking I might have to get a new one which I don't really mind as, in the few years since I bought this one they have got smaller, cheaper and more often work wirelessly. However, I resented wasting the ink cartridges I've got as I hadn't seen a new machine readily available using the same ones...and then I remembered that they'd been bought on a disabled student's allowance anyway so should my scrooge-ish feelings were quite irrelevant. Even so, I dislike waste so I hoped a charity shop might take any leftovers. Well, today I've been though all the maintenance utilities again and, as you do, used a bit of ink in the process so that I needed to change a couple of cartridges. In the process of that I realised that these spare cartridges were well over a year past their use by date. So that might explain some of their reluctance to print...and also means they could only be used by me or given away. But anyway, after a good deal of print head cleaning and realignment and a shake up of remaining elderly ink, the printer has consented to carry on working for now...Woohoo...oh and that reminds me Andy Murray is playing Nicholas Mahut in a little while. I must go and have a shower and get some clean clothes on. It would be rude to greet them like this...

Mmmm...and I'm grateful for my shower. Being able to get my back wet (and properly warm) is such a wonderful treat!

I'm grateful that Jared's coming over this evening and has agreed it's time we went to the tapas bar again. It's an ideal eating place for me as the nibbly nature of the food gets rid of any appetite problems and it's none of it stuff that requires a knife as well as a fork which I struggle to do daintily these days. It's also a popular place to eat and socialise but not especially to be seen if you know what I mean, so you don't feel you need your best bib and tucker, or to be mortified if you pour something down its front and there are some quiet nooks to be out of the way if there is a large party dining in the middle of the room. I'm grateful for their delicious menu that means even mostly vegetarians can have a choice...

Out to grass

I give thanks that rain caused all play to be abandoned at Queen's yesterday as I didn't have time to give it my full attention anyway... When I'd finished my chores I was able to rest on the sofa and catch up with some of the things I'd recorded whilst watching the French Open instead... I'm grateful that I didn't get wet when I went out to post the post and that, at last in the late afternoon, I found the appetite to eat some of the food I'd made.

Today I give thanks for little snatches of sunshine and soft patter of showers of rain. For the prospect of a ready meal tea for a change... I give thanks to Laura for a flying visit to help with decorating chores and to Jan for making me some pretty little earrings to order and for them arriving by post swiftly and safely. I'm so grateful for people to help me do what I used to do myself, so my ideas can still materialise. I give thanks for some play at Queen's today which I've just sat down to watch. And for the memory, this time a couple of years ago, of hearing the announcers say there were still some tickets left for the final and thinking OK I'll relieve you of one! It was one of the most boring matches I've ever sat through but it was splendid to be there if nothing else for the delight of passing close to Mr Rusedski in a corridor!

Hard copy

In response to my own comment about seeing somewhere you love in the media...maybe not if it's labelled as somewhere else. In a story on the BBC news site about Dawlish they had a picture of Teignmouth instead. If you looked closely...and knew where to look, you could have seen me waving out of my window and pointing down the coast!

I give thanks today for putting my new bed sheet set on my bed yesterday afternoon. Wow...sheets are so much easier than duvet covers. I want some more now! My hands have been very painful and unco-operative today so I'm grateful because I did the job yesterday ie. it's done, but also because the bed looks so inviting now. I'm grateful I managed to resist climbing back in until bed time.

I give thanks that Clive phoned me yesterday afternoon and I knew it was him even though I don't currently have caller display on my landline, and he hadn't said he would. How did I know? Because he'd been on Facebook not long before complaining he was bored! I'm not complaining, ha ha! I exchanged communication with more people yesterday than I often do in a month or two. How strange! I'm grateful nonetheless...

I'm grateful I've filled in pages of forms to explain to the DWP why they weren't informed my health was deteriorating....Because you'd already been told I had terminal cancer, duh! And everybody thought that was why. I would cross my fingers that they'll be benign but they hurt too much today for that. I give thanks that my rather poorly printer allowed me to photocopy everything I've said, so that I can say exactly the same again should need be! And I give thanks that I managed to make cauliflower cheese in instalments during the sessions by the machine. Lots of sitting down in between required but neither the photocopying nor the cooking minded that at all. Gratitude for the paper and ink, the cauliflower, flour, milk and cheese...and mustard!

For Tony

Definitely run out of that placebo energy...I planned to have a rest this weekend but didn't expect to spend quite so much time asleep. Apart from gratitude for the luxury of this, most of my thanks is for the TV I glimpsed in the gaps when there were gaps between my eyelids. Drifting into doze with the pause button at the end of Nothing to Declare and during fast forward images thinking I spotted someone holding up a urostomy bag. I did...it was a programme about Jade Goody's influence on awareness of cervical cancer. I didn't want to watch the whole thing but I did watch the bag bit in total astonishment (and some relief that a prime time and mainstream offering had a wearing of two sorts of bags telling viewers about them) before catching up with Coast...

...and getting rather envious of footage of Scilly islanders wading between St Martins and Bryher across Tresco during the lowest September tide... The next item was about Branscombe which made me further misty eyed with longing for another favourite spot...and then there was an overhead railway shot of a track curving right inland under a road bridge and I had to rewind and pause that as well, realising it was here! Just where I was on Friday waiting for planes. Bet they took it ages ago when they filmed Dawlish at the start of the programme. Doesn't it gladden the heart when you see somewhere you know on TV? Well, somewhere you like anyway and there are always bits I like on Coast!

I give thanks for the strength to keep myself fed and clean and the laundry done and the pots washed, if nothing very much more. Anything more is always a bonus. Anything less an indignity. I give thanks for another cool, wet, grey day so I don't feel like missing out on summer fun...

But most of all today I give thanks for having 'known' Tony Songhurst, even if only virtually, and Ann his lovely mother. He was a strong proud man with lots of wisdom and kindness to share, but his illness beat him yesterday. I give so much thanks that he and Carole got to meet up when they were both well enough. Thinking of her too today, her birthday. Even if you don't believe in an after life, even if you do but don't think it's like this one, it's hard not to imagine her waiting for him with tea and birthday cake to share. I give thanks for all the lives both these two people enriched while they were here...

Bed best

My first thanks of the day is, of course, for all your encouraging comments on here, Facebook, or by email. Some of them were especially thoughtful and insightful. Lots of people read my blog and didn't say anything at all and they might have been wishing I'd shut up of course but they can vote with their fingers, I don't care, as long as I've a dozen or so regular or occasional contented readers then it makes sense to carry on. I choose my words for my own pleasure and am always slightly surprised when other people enjoy them too. It's like when I do something creative with fabric or my flat and others say it's looking good and I realise it's not just me who thinks so. There are so many sorts of taste and opinion around it's amazing isn't it when they are shared? Let's all say a thank you that this is not always the case though or we'd all be wearing the same clothes, reading the same books and listening to the same music and creativity would be redundant!

I thought the iron treatment might make me feel stronger straight away but the renal anaemia nurse said not for a couple of months, if at all, and it was all to do with maintaining background levels because (insert medical information re CKD)...so I decided to adopt a placebo position and kid myself I felt a bit better because Laura was coming to help with some decorating chores and I had help with that, and also I needed to try to see some planes. Teignmouth isn't the best place to see Dawlish Air Show. You might think Dawlish is but you'd be wrong, it's the headland in between which there was no way I could placebo myself up this year (and would probably be a mudslide down) but with a great deal of manoeuvring I managed to get somewhere aircraft could be seen about the size of seagulls and the Red Arrows flew over several times banking back for the main display. Afterwards I was fit for nothing but a bar of Green & Black's in one hand and a remote in the other for several hours but I'm very grateful for the exhilaration of sea air and roaring jets and the warm buzzy feeling of shared experience with strangers. Speaking as a social anthropologist (old in joke) I would call this Durkheimian 'collective effervescence'...

Today, I gave thanks for the long triangle of bright blue sky between my imperfectly drawn bedroom curtains but after going outdoors two days in a row I feel totally trampled. I give thanks for my usual weekend non social life that should allow some serious recuperation. I'm grateful there's not much scheduled on TV I want to watch so I can catch up with things recorded and maybe some DVDs. Lots of snoozing planned if I ever get out of bed, maybe some nibbling if I can find my appetite!

To anyone who ever tries to comment on my blog and fails....see the comments on Juanita's walswords.blogspot.com...and smile...

Enjoy your days folks...

Oh yes, PS. I'm extra grateful a few people got the hippy trees. I looked out of the window and could practically hear Jethro Tull...

This year next year sometime never

I've done almost nothing since I got back from my arm wrestling trip except sleep, watch Lewis and write this. But hey...it was an excellent episode of Lewis. Very droll!

There were no seaside window seats on the train but I found an empty pair on the land side opposite one of the double doors with almost full length glass in them so I was able to get a great view of the crashing waves including, as the tide was in, the ones crashing over the train where it runs just a low wall away from the sea. Love it! But as always now, memories of pictures of the remains of the coastal lines in Japan after the tsunami last year came to mind. Those pictures of flung carriages touched me deeply as I could identify with the travellers more easily than those in cars. I give thanks for the beauty and the power and above all being able to appreciate it in safety.

The rest of the day was quite eventful in a win some, lose some kind of way. I'll spare you the details...novels have been written with less of a plot line than yesterday but the treatment when I got to it was less stressful than the getting to. No cannula involved! That's enough gratitudes for the rest of the day...I really don't like those! The nurse was horrified at my blood pressure when I arrived but it dropped somewhat after resting there. I've not had high blood pressure til the last few months and it's generally thought to be caused by the poor kidney function rather than causing it (it can go either way), but I suspect it's one reason I've been feeling rough and I may have to start treatment for that too as it's not lifestyle related so there's little I can do myself in the way of modification.

She also talked to me about my 'renal future' or some such term. I've been in a strange place since moving so unexpectedly from the terminal phase to remission with cancer. It's not a common journey. I'm not on well trodden ground with loads of hints and tips available... Counselling may be required for the loss of some of the things I've given to the hospice charity shop thinking I'd not be needing the things any more but would soon be needing the charity!

Joking apart, it's odd to have fought off one major cause of death only to find another one hiding behind it. Still, although it's not unmitigated good news, and there will be more tricky treatment decisions ahead as the disease progresses, I feel as if I've moved from the liminal limbo I've been in to another stage in my life now.

And look...random or not? Look back to the date of my first blog post. A year ago today I was praising the poppies I saw on the way to see Audrey...forebears of the poppies that delighted me yesterday... I started this as a project to give purpose to a terminal diagnosis of cancer. I can't imagine not carrying on...do you mind if I do? Will you still read it? I need five people to say yes! (There you go Kate...that's attention seeking for you!)

Anyway, back to the unmitigated good news. IV iron counts as day case treatment so Simply Health should give me back some of the money I give to them which will cover the catering for the day. I treated myself to warm banana and chocolate bread with cappuccino for breakfast at the veggie cafe on the green and then had lunch at the hospital restaurant. For this I'm exceptionally grateful as when I went in it was 'carvery day'...most unappetising to me... but behind the slabs of roasted farm animals was butternut squash and sweet potato soup. Yum, yum! A snip at £2.95 including roll and butter. And if you wanted to you could choose a chunk of rough sun dried tomato bread instead of a doughy white bap. Oh my word...my kind of food in a hospital!

The sun came out on the way home on the bus just in time to be able to see through the windows to the spectacular sea scapes of wild white topped waves. Great thanks for that. It was quite empty on the top deck so I could have the corner seat at the front with the best views, and also quite bumpy so hopefully the involuntary rhythmic twitches that went with the music I was listening to just looked like a lightweight body succumbing to poor suspension.

And I give thanks for the big leafy trees looking like hairy hippies dancing in ragged green clothes...though that could be due to spending too much time with hairy hippies at an impressionable age and might be lost on the rest of you!

Coast haste

Well, well...you know that red thing I saw on Monday night? Maybe it wasn't the moon! http://www.middevonstar.co.uk/news/mid_devon_news_mix/9745589.UFO_spotted_over_Witheridge/?ref=rss

I give thanks for having seen a few unidentified or apparently unlikely phenomena in my life...and more to come I hope.

I give thanks for the tennis being rather dull (in my opinion) yesterday afternoon so that I wasn't glued to the screen and the edge of my seat (an uncomfortable combination if there's a comfortable viewing gap in between). The commentator described the first set and a half of the Murray v Ferrer match as being like a game of chess. This was meant as praise I think but it made me realise why I was finding viewing so tedious and turned over! I don't really mind who wins but I do need some oohs and aahs along the way. I did some chores again...it's hard to say I'm glad I did but I am glad they're done!

I give thanks for the gentle sound of the waves before the storm last night. My body was weary of aches and inconveniences and it soothed my fractious mind to sleep.

I'm grateful my favourite taxi driver was free to take me to the station. I gave up on the bus. They're resurfacing a narrow road between me and the unsheltered bus stop so there seemed too many opportunities to get wet and squashed. The train will have a loo which might be handy and the city bus from the station goes much nearer the kidney unit. Besides there might be big waves to see along the coast.

I'm grateful I'm up in time for departure for my treatment. If I stop doing this I might even be dressed!

House and home

Today I give thanks for knowing when to give up. I've been struggling with a sewing project for weeks and after another try today I decided to call it one. It's no big deal...I was just trying to alter an old bag to be more suitable to my needs ie a cross body strap so it doesn't fall off and a pocket to put purse and so on in so I'm not scrabbling in the bottom. But this bag has fought me all the way and this afternoon I stopped fighting back! I do get exasperated with people who say you can achieve anything you put your mind to. How does that work in a race for instance with everyone believing they can win? What's that? They're not believing hard enough? Well they didn't achieve that either then did they? I'm grateful for trying, it was a damn fine idea...but I'm also grateful for knowing when it ceased to be.

I give thanks for the astonishingly torrential rain this morning and the lovely afternoon it is here, fresh and breezy and sunny too.For the sight of cloud shadows dashing across the fields and the glint of light on the river. And a couple attempting to assemble a large and fancy plastic wendy house in their yard. I get the impression it's been in sections in their shed for the winter and needs some persuading to become habitable again. Mallets are involved. Nice of them to try though... I had to make do with a clothes horse and a blanket. Oh, that reminds me....I give thanks for washing drying on the rack by the window and a vague possibility of ironing later too...

And, with apologies to those who've seen it elsewhere, for this amusing tale...http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-18322606

Step up to the plate!

I'm grateful I had no plans for anything much today. Felt below par in ways that are par for the proverbial renally and no big deal as I was tired from my evening excursion and just wanted to get the chores done and try to stay awake in front of the TV. But, in the end, I thought 'How difficult can cookies be?' (I'll tell you just how easy in a min!) and did the various stages in instalments whist a simple savoury snack was cooking because I think when you're queasy it's best to give your digestion something to make its mind up with.

So this is what you do: Cream some soft butter or margarine with dark muscovado sugar. Add a couple of drops of almond extract, plenty of cocoa and wholemeal self raising flour until it stops being sticky and begins to bind together. Then lightly roll into little balls, spread them out on a greased tin and chill for an hour or so. Cook on about 180 electric until they're cookie shape and softly set.
Sorry I can't be more precise...I made the recipe up thirty years ago and have been making them ever since without ever needing measurements. I only looked at the cooker setting so I could say what it had been! You could adapt any biscuit recipe, and make them as shortbread in a pressed into a tin too but they're lighter like this. The trick is to chill them first. Well, let's be honest here, the trick is not to eat the mixture straight out of the bowl!

You could try different flour...I never have as I only ever buy one but whatever you do, don't change the sugar. Dark muscovado kind of treacle toffees the flavour and makes it more chocolatey somehow...

Curling up

Well, I feel as if I ought to apologise for talking about tennis again but it really is something I am grateful for having the opportunity to watch. TV can be a comfort or company when you're curled up on the sofa but some of the French Open play has actually been exhilarating this year. Another thing I like about watching sport is you know lots of other people are doing the same thing at the same time, so in some small way you feel part of something...especially nice if you usually feel like a spare part! I know some people had similar pleasure watching the Jubilee but I never got round to that...

I give particular thanks for Andy Murray's match against Richard Gasquet yesterday. When Murray is good he is very very good (or he wouldn't be so highly ranked despite never winning a grand slam) but it can also be true that when he's bad he's horrid, and even though for the first set and a half he didn't play particularly well, and was losing quite convincingly, but he didn't sulk or stamp or swear...he just got better until he was absolutely brilliant! He's got shorter hair this year. I wonder if people used to tease him with the curl in the forehead rhyme too...

I'm extremely grateful for a glimpse of a sliver of red moon last night rising between the clouds...at least I think that's what it was. If not I give thanks for sight of an unidentified something else! I'm grateful I managed to stay awake long enough and late enough to creep down the hill (that's the speed I walk at now!) to see the sea and fireworks going off around the bay. You could hear the sounds of others reverberating around the hills. Quite a few people passed me off to join in the fun but it was soothing just sitting looking down at the waves. I love the sea at night (as well!). Of course I give huge thanks for my feet and legs then carrying me back up the hill and for not too many encounters. My extremities are increasingly numb and I stagger and stumble a bit which is embarrassing enough in daylight but at 11 pm on a Bank Holiday is easily misconstrued.

Today I give thanks for a long lie in listening to the rain. For less joint pain than I might have expected (maybe the turmeric is doing it's job?) so Henry-ing up the cooking debris in the kitchen. I still can't manage a full vigorous vacuum but a gentle glide where there's no carpet pile can be done now and then and much better the place looks for it too. For mouth watering thoughts that maybe later I might make some chocolate cookies...

Thanks too for your kind words Pat... I didn't mean to imply anyone had pushed in. It's the other way round from a deli queue, I think, but there are sometimes situations when one might wish it were possible to change the places around, people you'd like to move further back.

Oh, and if anyone else has been missing it unnecessarily...it's live every day on ITV4...

Beyond compare

I give thanks for waking up in a peaceful place with nothing to rush for so I could rest some more.

I give thanks for finding an email already waiting when I finally stirred...

I give thanks for brilliant tennis during the afternoon and evening yesterday..the sort where you can't help vocalising your astonishment, admiration or dismay. Or sometimes actually applaud. Or is that just me, who claps on their own at home in front of the TV? Who cares...loved it anyway!

I give thanks for the ice cream colours in the sky afterwards. Blueberry, peach and clotted cream... and was grateful for the little gaps in the heavy cloud this morning sprinkling sunshine sparkles on the surface of the sea.

I'm grateful to Jan for saying she'd have a go at making the ear rings I would make if I still could. I would have bought the beads from her at beadaholics so this way neither of us is missing out!

I'm grateful for finally getting washed (including my hair) and dressed. I know I don't have to but I like to you know, though it seems a challenge sometimes. My GP assures me I'm meant to feel feeble but I'm sure I didn't feel very much weaker when my anaemia was considerably worse. Ah, the curse of comparisons. I'm fine enough and I'm grateful for the luxury of being able to do these things and in my own time too...

And I give thanks to Ann for updating us about how her son Tony is doing. How hard it must be for her and all his family and friends. Tony was one of the people I 'met' when I joined Cancerchat to talk about my feelings about dying. He was one of those who, at that time, was thought to be more well than me. Carole was another. Of course one knows the ways that life and death transpire are rarely 'fair', but people so loved and precious moving ahead of really rather dispensable me in the queue seems especially poignant and sad.

Happy feet

Morning all! Or it was at the start of writing anyway!

I would like to express gratitude for the hippies at the bottom of my garden. Once I had fairies in the house...but that's another tale entirely! Anyway the alternatively minded young folks downstairs were outside with a giant bubble wand, sending big wobbly rainbow spheres across the lawns. Very pretty and entertaining. I wondered about trying to take a snap but suspect it would have looked photoshopped if it had come out well enough to add on here.

I give thanks too for the sound of the heavy rain landing on all the lush greenery afterwards...

And for the Brittany Ferries ad photos showing the 'mini cruise' ship so close to the city and beaches of Santander. It looks photo shopped too but though obviously they've gone for the most dramatic angle I can assure you, if you've not been, that the city buildings really do come right down to the waterfront and the beaches really do have sand and the ferry really does glide into port in between. It's amazing...especially if you've got a bit of a thing about big water vehicles...especially close to shore...like me. No, I can't be the only one... can I?

I give thanks for finally finding a zipper foot after searching for several days. It's not the one I thought I lost. I can't even find a picture of that on the internet. Though I did find a picture of another one I had. This one clearly came with the machine as it was in the accessory box and the manual but I've never used it because I used one of the other ones. And no, if you don't know, it's not another surgical appliance!

I give thanks for the big bowl of delicious fruit salad I made that has treated me to many smaller bowls over the last couple of days. I thought I was having a visitor of Friday but I didn't so all more for me!

From your own correspondent

After reading a printed plea for contributors to Positive News I offered my services. At last, I thought, something useful I can do whilst horizontal. (Spare us the smutty jokes please, I'd only appeal to a very specialised market now!) Well, anyway...they didn't even reply which didn't seem at all positive to me... but I continue to gather my joys to share. As I've been feeling rather low in both in emotional spirits and physical energy this seems extra important right now...it's so easy to go 'Oh woe is me!' and spread whatever is woeing you and if no one can fix it, or is even realtime there to listen/pat you/pour you a drink that seems pretty pointless to me...

So...I liked this story about a seal using a dinghy to rest between swims http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-18282515 and this one about Cubans finding an outlet for suppressed individuality in their children's names http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18270547

I give thanks for the cool windy weather...watching the clouds roll down the hillside at the back of the building and hearing the sea and trees waving around at the front. I hope all the celebrations (and excuses for them!) go well, unhindered by the breeze...

I'm grateful I felt up to collecting the post as my mini picture frames were on the mat. They are ideal for a craft project I've had in mind for some years but stalled for lack of these items. Heaven knows how long it'll stall now and for what reason but there's one excuse crossed off the list! There was some post addressed to the basement flat so I went and put in through their letter box when I took the rubbish to the bins...hoping, of course, that they'll reciprocate as speedily themselves in future! I noticed the other day that in it's latest update the Streetview car went along our unadopted 'back' road which I found absurdly pleasing especially as it looks so astonishingly neat!

I'm grateful I've food in the cupboards, and some not too taxing things to do when I'm ready for the next instalment of activity and TV, books etc for in between layers of rest. I give thanks for my brunch of pancakes (when my life hands me lemons I like it to hand me flour and milk and eggs as well!) and I'm so grateful for damnyouautocorrect...when friends and family aren't around sometimes complete strangers can cheer you up too! I'm grateful to virtual chums Lynn and Carol for taking the time to share a few words this morning... I had a text as well and got quite excited when I saw the smiley face on my phone but it was just the phone company :-(

Box of frogs

Actually it was a box of mini screwdrivers from ebay. Nothing wrong with that except I'd ordered a box of mini picture frames and even if I stick four of them together at right angles they won't really do the job! The seller only has the two items and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume someone somewhere who ordered on the same day is wondering how to undo screws with a small square of wood moulding. Still pretty mad though! The package was smaller and heavier than I'd expected but I thought the frames weren't quite what I'd imagined from the photo/description. Been known to happen with an internet purchase afterall. I sent him a message straight away and await developments and... picture frames.

Never mind the new sheet set that came looks lovely and jumped straight in the washing machine to take away that funny smell new bedlinen always has. Funnily enough I was just about to put a load on eco wash. I give great thanks for my washing machine, the water and electricity and all the chaps who've plumbed it in in various locations over the years. That's you Peter,  Clive and Jared if you're reading this...the others I KNOW won't be so they don't get a mention...

I give thanks to George Lamb for making me chuckle over my Tesco sag aloo and pilau rice last night while others attempted to make fancier fare. Oh and I give thanks to whoever it was in the Tesco factory for making my tea! 

Also for this chap's stunning designs which made me go ooh!  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18206702. I was hard pressed to find a jolly news story even in the 'low down' headlines today, disheartening tales abound...and comments. Top tip for the day: don't ever read news story comments. So many people so full of hate...makes it hard not to feel it too. But when I went to do the washing up I came up with a great housework tip instead: take your specs off! Works a treat...everything looks lovely now. Forget rose coloured!

I'm grateful for different difficulties to deal with today...good to have a variety, I think. These were more of a social nature and heaven knows I need a lot of practice there. I don't do disappointments well so the more opportunity to do better, the better I think, don't you? I'm grateful I can carrying on be a whingey cow home alone without bothering anyone!

I'm grateful for the sound of the rooster crowing across the way...especially as it wasn't at Dylan-esque break of dawn! Love hearing chickens and ducks. I'm grateful for Co op Fair Trade chocolate caramels and a couple of episodes of Nothing to Declare I'd not seen before.

PS. And that I had a message from the ebay seller telling me to keep or dispose of the screwdrivers and he'll send the picture frames right away! If anyone needs a little green plastic screwdriver or two let me know...