Spirit Recovery Service

To be honest I don't always feel particularly grateful for everything, nor even equanimous which is, of course, the state to strive for. Undoubtably 'religiously' practising gratitude helps to maintain a background state of healthy attitude but I can still get sick at heart over specifics like anyone else. And when I do, despite aiming just to accept sorrow and to remember it will pass like joy does, there's a tendency to want to turn the feeling round temporarily by tried and tested means. At this point I should be grateful these means are not illegal, expensive or detrimental to body and mind, but as my long term favourite mood enhancers are impossibly inaccessible in other ways, wanting them to cheer me up is a sure way to get sadder!

Anyway, I was a bit of a saddo this morning as I set out to get a couple more balls of scarf wool and a circular needle for someone at the knitting group and the real mission was to find the treasure of good cheer. I was grateful for a letter arriving on the way out with an appointment for a scan. They'd booked me in for my cancer check up chat without one beforehand and I had to remind them that's not how they check... It was touch and go if they could find a slot before my consultation but it's on Friday 13th so maybe they had a cancellation!

I was grateful for the way this news concentrated my mind as one more hospital outing to find the energy for meant I had to make the most of today's just for pleasure trip. And I was grateful that I did, most energetically! I was grateful for the beautiful autumn colours where usually there's bare branches by now, especially the trees reflected on the still water of the river...and my mp3 player playing music I loved. I was grateful for being able to get somewhere, even if nowhere I specially wanted to be...and then I got hold of a bus table book and realised I could go somewhere else it would be feel like a treat to be...so I did! I went to the town where it's always Christmas in my head (because I rarely go and it's usually winter and the shops are full of lovely things) and told the lady in the chocolate shop and she said understood because she only comes here in the summer! I was grateful I had a couple of people to buy gifts for (including me!) and was grateful not many so I didn't shop for long and could see more trees on the way back...but the bus didn't come and it got dark. But then I was grateful it was a small rural town in Devon so a teenage boy, an elderly lady and myself could feel perfectly OK about chatting to pass the time!

And on the way back, in the dark, we passed a landrover parked facing out onto the road...and on the front it said Spirit Recovery Service. I wrote it down to look up on the internet when I got home and find out about the unusual name this local breakdown company has...and I can find no reference to it at all. But I did realise I'd cheered up and it would be grand name for my blog post today!