Breaking points

I give thanks for getting my morosity off the mattress and out and about to get on with things that needed to be done. I'm grateful the sun came out while I was resting with a cuppa on the seafront, so I could try out my new sunglasses which have lenses big enough for me to not to squint and frown. I give thanks for feeling far more glamorous in them than I look! And for being able to look at distant headlands too...

I'm grateful I decided to get a taxi home, and thus to know it's better to wait for a bus, or possibly even crawl, than get an excessively expensive and excessively grumbly ride with that particular (new to me) cabbie. Although I did verbalise my dissatisfaction with the situation when I finally got away from the woman (who wanted to carry on spreading gloom and doom even after I'd paid and was standing on the pavement) I was grateful I didn't have anyone to come home and offload the burden of her offload and thus perpetuate and pass on the negativity.

I'm grateful for battling on for a while with the creative challenges I've set myself...before giving up and catching up with Breaking Bad.

I'm grateful for hearing from a couple of people I've not had word from for a while, and that they've included details of what they'd like me to buy them next. I give thanks I know it's petty to wish they'd thanked me for the last gifts I sent first! Remember readers: gratitude is good for you as well as me!

Epson downs

I give thanks for not having to cook more than a slice of toast so far today, having been nibbling on leftovers from the meal Laura provided yesterday to say thank you for having a go at getting her printer to work. I've the same elderly and often demented model and thought it might need some print head maintenance or maybe a software reinstall, but it was in an even more truculent mood and, at one point pliers and a chisel were involved! I give thanks that not having a mr around to fixit all these years has made me pretty good at doing it myself, and was very grateful to be able to be useful and helpful to someone else for a change.

Today, as the last three have been rather full of human interaction for me, I've been grateful for some downtime. I give thanks for peace and space to process recent events, past events and non-events too, a BBC programme about rubbish that wasn't at all, a little light internet surfing and the endlessly enthralling magpie activity outside. It's a bit late for them to be nest building and they don't seem to have the hang of it anyway so perhaps they're youngsters practising getting it right or oldies trying to remember how!

Know what I mean?

In a moment of misplaced vanity I bought a hairdryer last week, and although it's still not been out of its box for styling purposes I gave thanks for it yesterday evening when I discovered the over frosted freezer door had been left open a smidge and wouldn't close! I'm grateful to Rachel for helping me affect an emergency repair - to the state of the freezer and to my body and soul...

I'm grateful she cooked me some quick tea too (including delicious allotment grown mixed perennial leaves!l) and that Laura is has offered to make something for me tonight. I give thanks for knowing it's best not to slip too deep into delusions of popularity...and that there's still plenty to eat up in the freezer over the next few days before it gets a proper sort out.

I'm grateful to Jenny for cleaning the flat, especially the now sparkly windows... and for spending the afternoon looking out of closed eyelids instead, after a little more work on library embellishments.

I'm grateful when I was sad last night for remembering to ask the cosmos to help me be kind to other people and to try to spread joy. People can struggle with that when they're sad, and I don't want to be one who is mean.

Universe-ity

Wow, I give thanks for the Universe's limitless supply of lessons. No entrance requirements, no course fees, no grant or loan...just endless endless exams! I give thanks for the way you think you've signed up to one course only to find you're learning something completely different so that you might have the right answers but to completely the wrong questions, and have to revise all over again. Oh, and I give tremendous thanks for my chum Clive for swapping study notes over the last couple of days...

I give thanks for Jenny from knitting for offering me a lift to as well as fro today. Some days I don't feel like walking, or going on a bus or in a cab either, but being miraculously transported...and going in an offered lift is miraculously transported to me!

I give thanks for sharing laughter in the afternoon and crispy butter biscuits from Linda from France to take home. I give thanks for a pair of magpies twig gathering in the tree outside my window; sometimes one, sometimes two so sorrow, joy, sorrow, joy if you're superstitious...and also if you're not!

I give thanks for the sight of the twinkly sea in the sunshine, between the opening fresh green leaves. For how they remind me that all things are always changing. I give thanks for the cool clouds and spots of rain that followed too.You can only have a moment in your memory, for in the time you take to cherish it it's gone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goll8dbyppU

I give thanks for the soothing symmetry of nature (sometimes!)
http://www.boredpanda.com/geometry-symmetry-plants-nature/

I give thanks that I'm a little star!

Blossoming

I give thanks for another nap after writing yesterday's post and then going into the kitchen and rediscovering my other bargain - some little limp daffodil buds for 49p. Much gratitude for spotting their potential and waking up to them smiling at me!

I was grateful to the Mayor for putting on a magnificent firework display last night. Though I was too tired to go but he kindly organised it so by leaning out of the window all the blossoming rockets and shells were easily visible. Some parts of my body wish I didn't live up five flights of stairs...but my eyeballs love it!

I give thanks for getting more sleep in the last twenty four hours or so than I've done for a while, and for feeling much better for it...Also for talking more with friends old and new than I usually do in a month, and for that feeling good too. I'm grateful I'm not (yet) fretting about the fact this means many other things haven't got done as a consequence...

And talking of which I give thanks for spotting a marvelous loop of consequential logic in life events going back forty years. Too convoluted to explain on here but you may know the kind of thing I mean, where you realise one set of circumstances led to another, and then that to another and another so that eventually you begin to see, if not why we're, here at least why we were there!

Between the sheets

I give thanks that the little girl next door wasn't having a tantrum last night as my body had one when asked to finish making the bed and sleeping in the lounge was plan A; and for having a bed in the lounge so there's a choice!

I give thanks for having to get up to go to the Post Office. Also that I don't have anyone to look after me so that I don't lie around like the Queen of Bleeping Sheba on extremely achey days...but you know, Universe, if you saw fit to provide a tad more tender care here and there I'd be greatly grateful indeed! 

I give thanks for walking down the lane with the air filled with fragrance from the shrubs of spring...and fresh paint!

I give thanks that the sun went back in as Specsavers still don't have my new shades...and for the much needed free sit down while they rang around to find out why.

I give thanks for a taxi on the rank to bring me home and for somehow getting up the stairs before a very l-o-n-g lie down. For finally getting up to make a cuppa and remembering I this was in the shopping bags!!!!

I give thanks for starting the ironing and then stopping for a delicious wet afternoon nap...

Sticks and stays

A few days ago I gratefully remembered our drummer boy (if you do too you've been reading a long time and I'm grateful for your following!) His progression from merely hitting the skins to actually making music was one of the happier things to overhear here but then I think he went away, to uni perhaps where there were other distractions as last summer I heard him once and he was very out of practice. Well, all this was in my mind one day...and the next morning he was playing again! Much thanks to the synchronicity of the universe for that. I give thanks for hearing him today as well, which was something to gratefully focus the ears on instead that little girl screaming!

I give thanks for taking it so s-l-o-w today. I've not been feeling particularly ill or unmanageably achey but definitely in need of exploring my inner sloth! I give thanks for the weather getting greyer instead of brightening up - much easier for me to stick to my plan of a leisurely pace. 

I give thanks for Clive ringing up and offering to do a job for me, just because he knew it needed doing not because I asked. How kind and thoughtful is that?

I give thanks for this peaceful little film about cinnammon
http://twistedsifter.com/videos/where-cinnamon-sticks-come-from/

I give thanks that it was time to change my bed linen again so that once up I had to stay out of it!

I give thanks for this little pansy staying still when the wind was blowing the other day...

Further out

I give thanks for a busy morning in the office, dealing with various matters on line and on the phone. It was a tad frustrating at times but I can't say it was hard as my office has a mattress, quilt and pillows and looks remarkably like a bed to the untrained eye!

I was very tired today and achy today and grateful for another quiet day of other people's outness. However, as there were things to be done outside the home as well as in, I'm grateful at last I talked myself into sitting on a bus to the next town after deciding that would actually be quite like a rest. Even though I was quite wrong and it felt more like being in a tumble dryer - hot and hurtingly bumpy - I'm grateful I got the things I went for. I'm grateful I had just enough time to go to cafe for a real rest and a cuppa before it shut, though this made it too late to do the things I meant to get off the bus and do on the way back like pick up something 'convenient' for tea. There were still shops open you understand but my capability had long since shut down. I'm grateful for my freezer - I'm sure there must be something in there when I can be bothered to get up and look...

I give thanks for being invited to do something this evening...and that it was something it didn't matter terribly if I declined.

Crock of something

I give thanks for a random turn of phrase reminding me of Alanis Morrisette's Hand in my Pocket. And for it reminding me before the neighbours came home - in case they didn't want to be reminded too! I'm a bit of a crock chick and I don't care...

I give thanks for getting to see my GP, and in the best possible place - on a quiet street corner so we could natter a bit. We often natter a bit so it's good for the rest of her patients if it's not in the surgery. I give thanks she was so taken aback by how not crock I look!

I give thanks that the New (Improved?) Googlemaps still lets you return to 'Classic View', and that it asks you to tick a box or two to explain why you want to. One of them says 'Map is covered with boxes'. Yep...the answer's in the question guys!

I give thanks for taking a mobile pic from Monday and a few choice words and making a little announcement to go on the Oracle Facebook page. It must be OK - people I don't know have liked it!

I give thanks for my camera continuing to enable me to see the things I see often in whole new ways. Like the view out the back on a bright day's evening...

About out

I give thanks for another day of lovely spring weather to be enjoying being out and about... and I give thanks that everyone else around and about went out in it so that I could enjoy being quietly indoors...

I give thanks the yapping dog next door has stopped complaining about the folk coming home, though I must admit I know how it feels!

I give thanks for liaising with a delivery driver which was the only must do to be done... and by planning to do nothing else, and sticking to that plan whenever I felt like it, actually getting quite a few little bits and bobs done in between.

I give thanks a couple of tops to wear on my trip are close to completion...and that if I don't get to go for any reason I'll have them to wear anyway. Oh and for running a vacuum around (some of) the bits that show. I'm grateful I live alone so there's no one to trip over the trailing lead and hose when I pause for a rest in between them.

Shelf esteem

Oops, I forgot to give thanks for my knees not hurting yesterday. I was grateful at the time and grateful to them for hurting this morning and waking me up to remind me! It meant I got to hear the particularly fulsome surround sound birdsong at day break too.

I give thanks for the neighbourhood dogs barking and bringing me back to the present moment when wandering off on a reverie - so many plans and schemes and visions unfolding at the moment. Oh, and I'm grateful for that as well of course...

I give thanks for discovering my cousin's book is available as paperback not just an ebook. I want a copy on the shelf next to the ones including a couple of my stories... waiting for companions I hope!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tinkle-Little-Star-Simon-John-ebook/dp/B00WBTLKKC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1429553459&sr=8-1&keywords=tinkle+tinkle+little+star

I give thanks for how well the library decorations are coming on. Enough done now for a few to gather for a publicity shot and heartwarming to hear all the gratitude and delight.

I wasn't grateful Rachel was poorly, but not having to rush home meant that Jenny and I could sit in the late afternoon sun on the back beach with a cuppa, watching the all the fascinating things there are to there, and I gave lots of thanks for that!

Fresh fruit

I give thanks for some fresh ways of thinking about things I've not been feeling very positively about before. There's nothing good nor bad...and all that jazz

For the fresh breeze and warm sunshine too, and getting out in it for a little while. It was one of those days when everyone else seems to be holding hands so I was grateful for the camera in mine. For room in the recycling skips for my plastic and card. 

For the pool gulls sitting by the lido instead of the sea, and this embarrassed magpie posing, then turning his head away at the very last moment

For a new jar of three fruit marmalade with lots of fruit! 

For the twinkle light trees and spectacular fireworks of the Bahrain Grand Prix. Good bit of racing too...it's wrong on so many levels, I know, but it keeps me company and keeps me entertained whilst staying level on a Sunday afternoon so that bit's absolutely fine. 

Roar file

I give thanks for a particularly enjoyable Big Issue, lovely to know the vendor in shorts in the shade sold me some sunshine to wallow with in a long lush bath. I give thanks for Boots and the Body Shop selling quite acceptable products with a small l for when you can't get to the one with a big! 

I give thanks for the BBC Young Dancer competition - the usual well modulated and formulaic BBC young anything presentation, but the contemporary section was a joy and next week they're doing hip hop so maybe that'll loosen things up a bit.

I give thanks for a Tesco Finest meal deal with components I not only can eat and drink, but actually want to. Very rare, and tasty!

I give thanks for the roaring sea in the night and the sight of it still churning today through the new spring leaves. I give thanks for my new camera bringing these close with so little effort...have I mentioned I've new camera? Oh forgetful, repetitious me...

Break making

After what was in many ways a difficult evening and night, I give thanks for promising myself a long morning of physical rest and spiritual contemplation and sticking the plan I made. I give thanks for realising, when I decided I wanted to be useful and do the vacuuming instead, that all beings in the vicinity were being quiet themselves so that it seemed a shame to disturb them and best to devote the afternoon to stillness too. I can be so selfless at times, ha ha! Thus I was grateful  for a little light TV catch up at the very quiet volume I prefer, especially Breaking Bad which I'm grateful is on terrestrial TV, but which I'd like even better with subtitles. 

I give thanks for still and somewhat subdued weather also assisting by not beckoning me outside.

I'm grateful for doing some seated tai chi to this simple video a physio recommended to me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj8d_yH0J3Y

and for making the first wave break on the shore...

I give thanks for softness of the pillowcase against my cheek, for the sound of the birds waking up in the earliest morning and the sight of the sky growing light. I give thanks for the usefulness of bin bags and of ready made foods that don't taste like they ought to go straight in them.

I give thanks for someone who doesn't know me calling me inspirational. I give thanks for knowing it maybe easier to if you don't!

Revive

I give thanks to Maddie for reviving my hair. I give thanks for the reviving sit down while she did it... and for the treat of being pampered for a while, especially having my hair washed on a day when my arms are so sore.

I give thanks for the soft spring sunshine, and for buying a Big Issue from the poor seller whose pitch is in the shade. I give thanks for going to a gathering of our new local fibromyalgia group, and finding it small and perfectly formed - just me and the organisers! I give thanks that the cafe had sofas to slump into.

I give thanks for persevering with a sewing project in a linen that is lovely but which frays so badly the seam allowances were disappearing before my eyes and needed stitching and zigzagging as soon as poss.

I give thanks that my latest blood test results were no worse than I feared. They were as bad as I feared however and I'm grateful I've resolved to try to be less fearful...I know of no medical condition that improves by worrying about it.

Hot and cold

I give thanks for the unspeakable awesomeness of living here, especially living here this time of year when locals walk round beaming and beatified by the beauty of it...and it's ours, all ours mwahahaha!

I give thanks for warmth warm enough to get through to even my chilly bones, and for predicting that might be the case and deforesting my legs so that when I rolled my trousers up people didn't scream and throw themselves off the sea wall. I'm grateful that I'm going to get my head hair trimmed tomorrow so they stop throwing sticks for me to fetch as well! I'm grateful for finding something suitably springlike to wear without having to mine the furthest recesses of the cupboard under the stairs as if I did that there'd be no energy left for going anywhere...

I give thanks for the zoominess of my new camera, not least because I can take the same shots as I've done so many times before but make them look different so you don't get bored (without having to get off my lazy behind!) And I'm grateful for my first paddle of the year - because when you see the sea like this you have to get off it anyway, don't you?

I give thanks for a Tesco delivery of tasty things to eat and drink to fill the cupboards, freezer and fridge...and for a hot bath running to soak away the aches and grains of sand.

Picture book

I give thanks for the sea mist. If it had been sunny I'd have wanted to go out in the sun, but it's been a busy bustly couple of weeks by my standards and I was grateful for better weather for staying in and doing quiet creative recuperative things. I'm grateful the neighbours were either out or out of it for a lot of the day... and for the sun breaking through in the last afternoon for those who finish work or school then and want to go out to play.

I give thanks for making a book for my teddy in a bikini to read on the knitted beach she will lie on in the library. Anyone who's thinking I should get out more should read the first part of this post again! I'm grateful my new camera is good at right up close as well as rather far away... and that a top at the top of the awaiting attention pile made it pose quite nicely.

I'm grateful for finishing a reading a good book myself, and for getting to the stage of a good jigsaw when you're sure the pieces left belong in another puzzle entirely.

I give thanks for these mostly misty pictures...and for the sunny ones too! 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/32206982

Greek to me

I give thanks for the capricious nature of my illness which means you can get half way through a day when you feel dreadful, and then for no discernible reason start feeling much better again - like Saturday - or the other way round like today! Of course it would be marvelous to feel marvelous all the time but one tends to forget to be grateful for that when it's going on, and this way keeps you on your toes, even when you're on your knees! I give thanks we ran out of sunshine this afternoon about the same time as I ran out of oomph, so that I didn't mind cutting a slice from my original intended schedule.

I give thanks for Clive and Sally popping by last night to say a quick hello and drop off the pole ends for my pole to become a dress rail. I give thanks for a companionable knitting session at the library and a companionable detour for ice cream with Jenny at Eastcliff on the way home...and for the sun being out again for this!

I give thanks that I've nearly made the Greek salad for tea...and that, all being well, Rachel will be coming to eat it and treat me before choir. If not I'll give thanks that there's more for me!

Billing and cooing

I give thanks for waking up this morning, opening the curtains and the moon shining at me in the blue sky. I give thanks for quite a bright and breezy start to the day (weather and me), for catching up with chores and snores this afternoon. I give thanks I have a room not next to that screaming child!

I give thanks for seeing two pairs of magpies yesterday, and hearing owls in the big old trees out the back a couple of nights ago. I give thanks that my cousin's wedding went well, and a certain Scottish tennis player's too judging by the smiling photos!

I give for optional subtitles. sometimes they're useful but reading about Valkyrie Bottas, Roz Burke and Fandango Alonso when you're watching Formula 1 can be rather distracting! Who are these people?

I give thanks for getting a good deal on holiday insurance. It's a shame it took so long I burnt my lunch but apparently that isn't included...

Finger clicking good

Today I'd planned a day of rest, but when Linda proved free to partake of belated birthday tea and cake I decided to go to pick up my Click and Collect parcels from the town one is always pleased to come home from and soothe my frayed edges with sweetness afterwards... 

I give thanks for the pretty views and the tree bud height windows on the bus in traffic jams. I give thanks for Van Morrison singing in my ear. I give thanks for (some) friendly staff in the shops I had to go in and (some) happy people I saw.

I give thanks that the tea room was delightful (as well as the company!) and the loose leaf Earl Grey we shared the nicest I've ever tasted. I think it's a special sort and you can buy it...and I think I probably will.

I give thanks that with my new camera I can now take pictures of magnolia blossom in the next street...without leaving this one! The battery was charged up when I turned it one so all I did was stick a card in, stick it out the window, wind the lens out a little and click. I give thanks that you can do cleverer things with this one if you've a mind to...and I think I probably will (try!)

Cotton patch

I give thanks for all the run of the mill stuff to be done in town today...and for a pretty patch of hazy sunshine to potter about doing it in. I give thanks for the friendly folk I met in my travels and a long sit down with a cup of tea and a muffin when some resting was required.

Why have cotton when you can have silk for even less on eBay? I give thanks for a couple more pretty tops which were a snip but are a little large and will need a bit of snipping and stitching. I give thanks I'm confident this can be done...

I give thanks for a belated but bumper haul of packages at the Post Office, including these and some Easter Lush bath treats from Bob. I'm very tired tonight and the yelly people and yappy dogs next door very loud, so I'm grateful a long soak and an early sleep are on the way...I wonder where they are when they're not here and whether those in earshot there are currently giving thanks!

Head in the clouds

I give thanks for hot water and soap and freezers and cheese. I give thanks for dropping off to sleep last night before the pains in my joints could set in...and for catching them with analgesics when they woke me in the wee small hours so I could drop off again.

I give thanks for a misty moisty afternoon - just right for taking it easy on the sofa and for capturing with my phone! I give thanks for thinking of a musical fog reference without resort to Lindisfarne for once...for watching films and not trying to be productive.

I give thanks for going for another drool over the second hand cameras I covet and finding that the fifteen on offer on eBay last week had dwindled to eight. I give thanks that thanks to a spot of financial assistance from Paypal's wait until you've got it scheme there are now seven for sale and one is on its way to me! Whereas the frames I nabbed yesterday are only recently obsolete and a pair could be found lurking in the back of the stock cupboard, this camera has been off the shelves for a couple of years, but as the later models had pricier tickets and poorer reviews an ex display with a year's guarantee seemed a good one to go for. I give thanks so many other people have clearly had the same idea and let's hope some of them are a bit more photographically savvy than I!

Free ticket

I give thanks for the pretty skies at sundown last night - orangey in the west and pink and blue in the east with matching pearly sea! I give thanks for sleeping better than I have done lately, though waking up between a variety of dreams. 

I give thanks for more springlike weather for all the holidaymakers in town, and for finding a free spot between them to drink my free Waitrose tea.

I give thanks for remembering to use my Specsavers Golden Ticket and get some sunglasses half price. I'd seen some a couple of weeks back but when I looked on line I couldn't find them nor in the shop any more either and was told they'd probably been discontinued. I tried on lots of other pairs but didn't like any as much, even the ones at twice the price, but I was grateful the assistant was very patient and helpful and kept rummaging around in the back to see if there was anything else in stock that might suit. Not as grateful when she finally turned up the ones I'd first thought of though!

I give thanks for a grateful comment on a blog post a few days ago, and some soothing bath salts from John and Jo. The noisy children are back next door so they might come in particularly handy...

Get your kicks

Gee, I'm grateful I didn't have to get up for work today...and I'm grateful I didn't have to go out to play last night either come to that! I'm grateful Mr Tesco made my tea, though if he could have washed up too, and maybe opened the new jar of chutney that would have been even better...

I'm grateful for taking things slow and easy, and for remembering kicking myself for not going out would have hurt as much in its own way...

I'm grateful for usefully getting on with some on line paperwork, and therapeutically getting on with a jigsaw. I'm grateful that Bob's Facebook messages now say they're verifying his account. This is an improvement on last time I looked.

I'm grateful for an 'air lift' - the sound of something unusual in the sky that made me simply have to get up and look! In this case it was a couple of twin rotor helicopters... Very nice! I'm grateful for an anticipatory taste bud tingle - left over cauliflower cheese tonight!

Bright spots

I give thanks that yesterday evening my knees stopped complaining enough to go for a stroll and enjoy the cormorants doing their miniature Loch Ness monster thing and the boat wake waves pretending to be dolphins! I give thanks for that special soft blue the sea goes when the sun's too low to shine on it, and the way white things are gold in the last of its rays.

I give thanks for coming home to the oh yes pleasiness of cauliflower cheesiness, and the tide and twilight combining to reveal the pretty ballet of lights as tankers went in and out on the still water and the pilot boat bobbed in between. I give thanks for the big yellow moon rising, and the bright morning waking me up. I give thanks for being too achey to go far on a bustling Bank Holiday...all part of the master plan, and for a nice snooze after lunch likewise

I give thanks it was too barmily balmy to resist in the end though, and despite being able to hardly move for crowds and stiff sore joints for getting an ice cream and marvelling at the shimmering glow of sun on cars across the river. I give thanks I'm saving up for a second hand camera with a bit of zoom but til then fair play to my phone!

Rouxing the day

I give thanks for finding my son alive and well on Googlemail after he fell foul of Facebook 'call yourself a name we believe in' rule and dire messages appeared instead of his account...

I give thanks for the sunny start to the day for folk with plans to be out and about...and for the clouding over for those for whom out and aboutness is something to be ruefully remembered more than it's achieved...

I give thanks for achieving the domestic tasks of the day instead including, in instalments, making a cauliflower cheese for my supper. I give thanks when Tesco's Finest is on special offer as it is fine indeed, and grating and stirring and wielding heavy bottomed pans is hard on my hurting bits but as it's been full price for a while,  while the veg shop had a cauli at 40p it would have been foolish not to...

I give thanks for horizontal travels with Coast Australia and the delights of HD TV

I give thanks for long hours of daylight as the bulb's gone on my sewing machine and refuses to come out to be changed!

Rose among the thorns

A lot of people I know are struggling with lost threads and tangled webs in the tapestries of their lives at the moment, they do not feel rich and they're stabbing themselves with the needles and pins (as I did yesterday). I'm grateful I know it's best to try to be grateful for all the character building you're getting and reminded myself of this when I lugged a heavy bag of shopping to meet a friend for a lift and lunch, only to find she was delayed for at least an hour and a half. I was grateful I hadn't bought ice cream but that I did have my trusty Walkman full of soothing Buddhist chants to encourage me to find the best peace of mind I could despite the freezing breeze and grumbling knees...

I'm grateful for a Post-it note on a stair rail hoping the reader's day was filled with happiness, and a bright rose blooming nearby and staying still enough to snap...

I give thanks that when I finally met my friend the traffic was kind and the popular place we not very optimistically took a short scenic drive to, not only had a free table for two but served us with the most delicious meal either of us has eaten for a very long time!

I give thanks for dark grey clouds against fields glowing green in a glimmer of sun and a little pink magnolia tree I can see from my kitchen window... I give thanks for getting home, sitting down and falling asleep before I'd even taken my coat and boots off!

Not so good Friday

Last night I gave thanks for being so good at looking after myself when I don't feel well - it can be a bit of a challenge sometimes steering the best course between being the nurse and the patient. 

This morning being patient won and I lay very late in bed feeling very sorry for myself so, although I wasn't exactly grateful when the dog upstairs had a long and loud fit of barking, on the plus side it did mean I got myself up at last. I give thanks for making a remarkably tasty omelette with some rather limp and shrivelled veg.

I'm grateful that when I decided to weigh something it wasn't food for a recipe as, after digging around in the back of a cupboard for my rarely used scales I promptly dropped and broke them so they're now no use at all. I give thanks that their box was handy for collecting cardboard in to take to the recycling though...

I give thanks for the murky day to go with my murky mood, and for binoculars for peering at craft on the sea...

I give thanks for these non-April Fool's stories for making me chuckle...
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-04-01/7-stories-that-werent-april-fools-but-could-have-been?fb_action_types=og.comments

Snap chat

I give thanks for all the things I have that plug in and/or switch on that still do what I hope they will when I do! Except for the ones most recently replaced, all are showing signs of age and malfunction and, of course, nowadays that means they are earmarked for replacement rather than repair and a source of consternation now and then when they suggest they maybe can't wait quite as long as I need them to...

I give thanks that my 'old' camera was happy to come out of retirement for a while, and can but commiserate now that it's decided it can work no more. I give thanks for finding what seems to be the next not too expensive one to buy and for accepting I can't afford even the refurb version for now. I give thanks that my second hand from ebay phone takes a decent snap...and for my second hand from ebay bargain instaglam for my trip...

I give thanks for an excellent documentary about twin girls from China adopted as babies into families from America and Norway who met by accident, helped along by the coincidence that they were wearing exactly the same dresses, bought by their new mothers in their respective home countries before setting out! Thanks also that so much of it was filmed in stunning Scandinavia rather than the States...

I give thanks for completing some rather lengthy and repetitious some line market research (because someone has to!) When I'd finished the questions I tried to leave the site without leaving a feedback comment on the survey itself as I felt I had nothing constructive to say, but it wouldn't let me. I ended up writing, 'Mildly irritating but hopefully helpful!' and then realised it would make an excellent epitaph for my gravestone if 'Whatever' is considered inappropriate when the time comes!

I give thanks for watching, and listening to, the bonfire again today...plus watching its builder tend and attend to it, pausing now and then to take pictures on his phone...

Chickpea tonight

After a tiring night not sleeping well I've been grateful for a mostly dolittle and golightly sort of day. I'm grateful for getting some on line jobs done and then getting to various places I needed to go before they closed so I could get a range of town chores done as well. I'm grateful for discovering buying rail tickets on the First Great Western site you don't pay a booking fee or a credit card charge plus you get Nectar points as well!

I'm grateful it was nippy so my shopping didn't melt at the bus stop when I got there just after the bus...

I give thanks for the smell of woodsmoke from a bonfire in the big garden of a house out the back. They seem to have demolished the hen house so I'm grateful I can't smell roast chicken!

I'm grateful Mr Tesco is entirely responsible for my tea of rice and stir fry and hummus - confusion food I guess you might call it.