Winding me up

Well, I was surprised how much heavier two duvets is than one...but grateful for how well I slept. And I was grateful for waking up with less pain...all that compression and warmth maybe!

In fact I was so comfortable I didn't want to get up at all so I'm grateful I did as there were things that needed to be done. I'm having a bad attack of 'not in the mood' at the moment - for pretty much everything I can think of that I can - but that's the way the cookie crumbles as they say. Oh, there's something... I'm grateful for cookies at the library! I wasn't in the mood for knitting or nattering but I'm grateful I gave it a go and hopefully didn't say too many of the wrong things and too few of the right ones...

I'm grateful for the mighty gusts of wind, most exhilarating to be out in, and for Jenny taking me down to hear the bridge sing which I've heard of but not heard before. It's amazing... though probably less so if you live nearby and hear it whenever there's a gale blowing. It was whistling through the yacht masts incredibly loudly too so quite an unusual experience for the ears...and it made me feel alive and aware and there which is pretty unusual these days, and very precious.

I'm grateful to Linda for sharing this clip of a snowboarding crow...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzp7GMRibQ0

Many shivers to cross

I'm grateful that yesterday I thought I'd rested my aches and pains enough the day before to be safely be active again for a few hours at least. Oh well...we all make mistakes! I'm grateful it's only pain, which is only a pain...if you see what I mean...and you can always feel the pain and do it anyway, though for me that often results in it hurting more and for longer so it's great for practising prioritising...and I must remember to be grateful for that!

Warmth and compression help, and you can buy neoprene gloves for painful hands but I'd really need a full body wet suit to cover all the problem areas. I'd probably need someone to help me into it...but if someone knew me well enough to help me into a wet suit they'd probably know me well enough to give me a hug as well and that would surely be helpful in itself. I could call it sofa surfing...

Oh well, back in the real world, I give thanks for getting dressed in several layers - clothing not being optional in my flat at this time of year... For wrestling my summer weight duvet down from the 'loft' and attaching it to the autumn one so winter warmth can begin in bed...

I give thanks for stopping wrestling with the Windows 10 Photo Gallery as, after talking to other people a while back I discovered theirs too goes through phases of simply ignoring everything you say, and you just have to wait as patiently as possible for it to say 'Oh these pictures...what is it you want me to do with them again?'

I give thanks for looking through my photos from my Lakes excursion with Jan, and being astounded that they were taken less than four weeks ago. Time is acting very strangely this year! I give thanks for this rather Nordic Gris image of a ferry on the lake...and for Jo suggesting something rather appealing involving a flask might and a moor might be on the cards in less than four weeks from today. I give thanks for friends instigating high places...

Filo my love

I give thanks for Mima's company, hospitality and chauffeuring...for admitting to each other a secret penchant for the lightweight but scenic TV series The Coroner...filmed not far from here of course!

I give thanks for a bit of bubbliness at bathtime...

I give thanks for less pain today, sticking to plan A and getting some Christmas gifts and fresh tasty treats in the markets and nearby shops

I give thanks for hearing a car engine not far away turn over, splutter and backfire...being puzzled enough to investigate and discovering a would be Lomax driver trying to coax his out of his drive. I didn't know what a Lomax was...so I give thanks for the internet for telling me http://www.burtoncar.com/burton-uk-cars-lomax.asp

I give thanks for spinach and feta pie from the Greek deli yesterday and a goat's cheese, garlic mushroom and rocket one from a stall today, both wrapped up in delicious flaky filo pastry. For catching quali... F1 doesn't float my boat the way it used to, but I love seeing the lights come on at Yas Marina. For a nice bit of doubles play by the Murray brothers...

I give thanks it's a different set of neighbours being almost unbearably noisy today...hopefully last Saturday's culprits are listening horrified! For headphones, earplugs...perseverance...

I give thanks to Amanda for sharing a link to 'Jenny' auditioning for a new Graham Norton show...Unlike pretty much everyone else in the known universe I'm utterly unmoved by Adele's latest single (except for shots of the phone box in the wood in the video)...but this bit of tomfoolery is a delight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHXjxWaQs9o

Not going too Fargo

In the wee small hours this morning, wryly reflecting on how much better I'd have felt if I hadn't hoped I'd go to sleep, I remembered to be grateful I didn't become a Buddhist nun - an idea which appealed in my forties - I'm far too much of a wuss for all that discipline these days! 

I give thanks for the early sunlight on the sea and the increasing murkiness and wind later on. For Bob sharing a picture of Christmas lights like sparkly pants and Gary one of Red Arrows pilots knitting. I was particularly grateful to see other women commenting on how cute men look when they are concentrating...I thought that was just my own little predilection! Add reading glasses and it'd be even better...though possibly worrying if it's a pilot..

I give thanks for my homely comforts, and for trying to enjoy them gratefully instead of wishing to go too far. I'm grateful for trying to get in touch with my inner couch potato and rest, though I still struggle to get my body to do it let alone my mind...and have to exercise my mind to come up with little tricks to play on myself to make it happen which relieves the boredom a little. I'm grateful for rising late and making a feast of pancakes with lemon and sugar so that going back to bed to digest them was OK.

I'm grateful for a saved episode of fabulous Fargo - so absorbing I had no trouble at just sitting totally still while that was on, apart from laughter and exclamations! And for catching the final games of a gripping Davis Cup match...as above, only possibly louder!

I'm grateful I've got a cab coming to take me to listen to a phlebotomist in a bit. Yes I do mean to listen to...and I do mean a plebotomist... Science cafe with Mima. If I have to sit in front of the TV a moment longer I'll disappear into the screen like the little bright dot in the middle of a valve one after you turn it off...

Brain med

OK, way too much pain to think of much today...but it dawns on me as I assemble a few memories of the more pleasant moments of the last twenty four hours that there's a kind of connection between them...

I give thanks for saving for later the book about the woman in a hospice dying of cancer and surplus to requirements love, and choosing instead the one about the social misfit who is advised that despite their weirdness they might still be just right for someone somewhere...it had a happy ending which is never just right for me, but a suitably unconventional one to appeal to my own weirdness.

I give thanks that sometimes, as when I got into bed last night, pain reaches a level when my brain just cuts out and I fall asleep and I give thanks that I woke up this morning feeling strangely as if all was right in my world. I was wondering why it might be that I'm so fortunate in the first way, and whether it might be connected to the second. I give thanks for coming across this article which suggests maybe I've just had lots of practice at producing the right chemicals!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/10382204/Brain-produces-painkillers-to-help-ease-social-pain-study-finds.html

I give thanks for finding a little plum velour skater dress on eBay 'for the party season'. As usual I don't actually have any parties to go to, no works outings, festive get togethers or even special nights in, but I always say it's a good job I don't as I don't have a thing to wear...so now I can tempt fate by imagining I'd look tempting! I give thanks that 99p plus p&p was quite a bargain price for the feeling...

The one that I want

I give thanks for the view as I lay in bed this morning. Too much information? Count yourself lucky I didn't share one from the forward facing camera!

I give thanks for finding this article and pic of a moonbow in Iceland recently and for all the sun and rain shower ones I saw today...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-34909259

I give thanks for the way, just as dealing with physical pain can be a way of learning more about the emotional sort (any feeling you'd rather not be feeling is a sort of pain), so grieving for my kettle is a useful tool for examining loss. How can I be grieving for a small electrical appliance? Well, I was a long time looking for it, and of all the kettles I've ever had it was my favourite by far. It was light but stable and even my often uncooperative hands could persuade it to perform...It was swift to heat up and made a pleasing sound...It felt good to the touch and was easy on the eye, just right for enhancing my kitchen and providing a reliable source of comfort, warmth and joy. If anyone can name a living being I could say the same of then I'll concede it was odd to be attached to my kettle...but as, for glaringly obvious reasons, none of you can you'll just have to concede that it's fair enough that I might be!

And my point is that anything that gladdens your heart has the potential to sadden it if it's not around any more...And I'm grateful I understand that no other kettle no matter how fit for purpose or bearing fair grounds for attraction is going to stand a chance of being chosen as a replacement until I've got wanting that one back out of my system. (Yes, of course I've searched for one just like it...Yes, even on ebay...are you insane?)

I give thanks for taking my aches and pains out to vaguely look for one anyway, and also a Christmas card to send to Kostas. The one that I want has a realistic picture of snow on the front and not to much slush in side, but finding it seems to be a tall order. Must be the wrong time of year or something...

Our Tune

I give thanks for the fibromyalgia sufferer's delayed pain response which meant my body didn't react to Sunday evening's unusual activity until the middle of last night...waking me up in the middle of horrid dreams it was a delight to escape from.

I give thanks for a dark day to go with a dark mood, and plenty more pain to direct my grumpiness at. I'm grateful for no one around to try and make me feel better, because sometimes it's best just to get on with feeling the way you do and not try to change it, or even appear to change it to make others feel better about themselves.

On the other hand... I give thanks for remembering to be polite and understanding when someone who had suggested doing something together I was looking forward to decided doing something else with someone else would suit them better. I give thanks for resisting the temptation to look forward again when they later said actually you never know maybe... and for realising it's partly my fault they did by failing to conceal my disappointment effectively. I give thanks the Universe probably has plenty more practice in dealing discreetly with in store...

Er... I'm grateful when the kettle started popping and shooting sparks around just now I managed to turn it off without electrocuting myself of blowing one of those ancient circuits? And then the kettle broke..? I know - this post is beginning to sound like a listener's letter on Our Tune. I'm sorry, I'm failing completely at the happiness element of my blog today... I'll go back to yesterday, there was some more joy there I'm sure...

I give thanks to Rachel for making delicious food to share with me...and washing up! For an acupuncture treatment as effective a mood enhancer as any of the usual suspect choices. For a choir practice that was actually a practice, not struggling to get our tonsils round anything new...and for finishing by working on Tchaikovsky's superbly unsugarplummy Crown of Roses. I adore the measured melancholy of its harmonies and it seems other choir members feel the same as we probably sing it better than pretty much anything else we do! I give thanks for feeling the sound ebb and swell around me...and most of all to the chaps in the bass section who provide the bottom line in the last few bars!

Respect to the sun

I give thanks for the refreshment to my being of being alone in my flat for an hour or so yesterday evening. I'm pretty much always technically alone in my flat you understand, but when I can constantly hear other people almost as loud as if they were too (and vice versa) it doesn't feel like it... It coincided with a period of feeling quite well and energetic - or maybe coincidence has nothing to do with it at all...

I give thanks for doing some seated Shibashi with the tattooed and tranquil John Clare (via Youtube - he didn't just pop by!) This made me really want to go swimming for some reason...but as I don't have a pop up swimming pool either, I'm grateful for coming up with the idea of doing some Shiatsu stretches instead. I give thanks I know it's vain, but I still give thanks that I can still bend in places many women my age don't even have places any more...and put it down to the fact that I started most days doing these exercises for twenty five years or so... even though I do them less than five times a year now! After the Shiatsu I used to usually do a few rounds of a well known yoga sequence...which I haven't attempted since a blissful brief gap in the external plumbing arrangements as the positions aren't really designed with those in mind. So of course I sat on the sofa for a bit thinking about that before I gave in and gave it a go as well. With respect to the sun (in joke for South Devon choristers) it probably didn't look much like an act of worship, but with respect to me - you go girl, there's life in your old dog yet!

I give thanks that Dominic is over his cold and there wasn't a severe frost last night so Jenny could offer me a lift to the library today - the previous paragraph notwithstanding, some days it still feels it would be more merciful to have me put down!

I give thanks for the character of Saga Noren making me feel normal...I think this is meant to happen by me thinking I'm not like her but it works the other way with me as well. And yes I wouldn't say no to a classic Porsche...one of the many reasons I never learnt to drive was the realisation if I could ever afford a car it wouldn't be one I'd want to...And now it would have to be disability adapted? I refer you to the previous paragraph again...

I give thanks for a catch up with the knitters, especially Dorothy who I've not seen for a while. I give thanks for her idea of inviting Biddy's daughter Julie to our pre Christmas session...and that, after seeing on Facebook she and Daniel Craig are an item, thinking to say she could bring him too. I got the impression my companions seemed keen to consider measuring him up for something cosy... And no I wouldn't but I'll be happy for an extra slice of cake if while they're busy ...

I give thanks for my cosy scruffy charity shop coat...and finding in the bottom of the pocket a little seed bead ring. There's many reasons I don't wear rings, and one of them is that they rarely fit my bony fingers or look right on my scruffy hands. This one is enchantingly fine...and no, I'm not taking it back to the shop...I had enough trouble buying the coat at the price it was marked at! I give thanks for my best attempt yet at catching the gold pre sunset light on the tree outside my window....that's precious enough for me!

Cardi perennials

'Tis the season to wear woollies...so I've been grateful I've been able to make inroads into making one too big ebay cardigan smaller, one that tied up button up, and one that was but an idea for some yarn left over from Bob's big purple jumper begin to take shape. All this is very wearing on the hands, however (even though I've sensibly hung my guitar back up on the wall) so I was grateful to spend a couple of hours yesterday evening not doing much with them at all but watching Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren etc al growing old explosively. Wireless headphones, organic fudge, mineral water, improbable story lines and a few chuckles along the way... life doesn't get much better than... What's that? Oh, I know it does...but not mine, and especially not mine on a Saturday night!

Today I've just been thankful for getting through what's seeming to be a very long one...For the times when I've looked out of the window and appreciated the sky and the light on the trees and the water. For the times when I've thought of things to have to eat other than toast and biscuits and toffee (nothing the matter with my appetite whatsoever, just minimal motivation to prepare and cook)... For doing some cleaning and tidying, and focusing on the pleasure I get from seeing things ordered and attractively arranged, rather than the other irrational and ironic reasons I like to have this done...For the times when pain has not prevented me from any of the above... For the times when the neighbours have been considerate... and even more so for when they went out!

Fulfilling a role

I give thanks for the comfort of a cosy bed, the mercy of sleep...and of the extra specially amazing times when the neighbours were home but being quiet...

I give thanks for the change in the weather, seasonally seasonable and reminding of J J Cale which always brings a smile. Of course it didn't change me, we never really change at all, just learn more about ourselves I guess...sometimes in the guise of learning more about other people...

I give thanks for all the folk who would have liked to go out and play on a sunny Saturday but had important things to do so others could, for all the people who could and had someone to say 'Hey let's..' to to make it all the more fun...and for all of us who are neither use nor entertainment but fill in the gaps here and there.

I give thanks for having some strength to get myself somewhere and deciding the kindest thing to do with it was to fill in some gaps in local shops and help create a bit of Teign spirit. It can be a tough time to be a small trader in a small town or a craftsperson in a market... I give thanks for finding some new things I could buy for other people, and a couple of things in charity shops I could buy for me. I hardly ever find anything in charity shops I like, let alone which fit, but today I bagged a delightfully shabby and un-chic vaguely fake sheepskin duffle coat and a little Fat Face dress which I'll considerately wear as a top... 

I give thanks for the bright sunshine and bright blue sky that lasted throughout my wanderings, and for going to find the cold and rather dispirited Big Issue seller at her shady pitch, commiserating with her over the temporary price rise that was putting some customers off...and buying one anyway of course!

Suck it up

I give thanks for remembering to look in http://www.thebookoflife.org in the middle of the last night when various aches and pains and problems were causing much misery - there's a lot of wisdom on many topics in there. I give thanks I'm so good at giving good advice... even to myself...

I give thanks I've had enough energy to go out and get on with things this week and for promising myself the best rest possible today. It wasn't possible to have peaceful rest so I'm grateful for finding some excellent earplugs a few months ago and buying several pairs, and for having some noisy stuff to do like vacuuming and using the sewing machine. I give thanks that just as I decided tolerance and aural insulation notwithstanding the music upstairs really had to stop for a while, someone else arrived there and said the same thing!

I'm grateful not getting narked about various failed attempts at various tasks and for just redoing them over and over again until they were less unsuccessful. I'm grateful for finally getting my taste buds on a raspberry Magnum last night...and that there are two more left to eat!

It's a forgiving thing

I give thanks for this article I spotted last night  http://positivenews.org.uk/2015/wellbeing/18776/eight-steps-achieving-forgiveness/

It reminded me it would be good if I could apply the understanding and compassion I use in forgiving others to my own foibles and failures...instead of always telling myself how much better I should do. I give thanks for resolving I must try harder... and to forgive myself when I don't succeed!

I give thanks for meeting the various challenges of the day trying to apply these techniques. One of the hardest things was being near shops this time of year - I find myself wishing I had places to go to wear the sparkly clothing, or hang the sparkly decorations... or occasions to share the tasty food...but most of all folk on whom to bestow some of that wonderful stuff on display (without making them feel embarrassed and awkward) ...or (even more embarrassing to admit) folk to want to bestow some of it on me! I give thanks for forgiving myself the envy, the unrealistic aspirations of acquisition and for wanting to give people more than they want from me.

I give thanks for for trying to be polite and kind, to be patient with public transport operators and users, humorous with hospital patients and staff, appreciative of moments here and there in the grey damp drudgery.

I give thanks for arriving back... eventually... to relative peacefulness upstairs and next door. Second to someone in my indoors calling out 'How was your day? Fancy a cuppa?' or, while we're in full on fantasy mood, 'So glad you're home, I missed you!' that's the most welcoming sound I know!

The ladies in the car

I give thanks for Mima and Jenny wanting to see the same film as I did, for Mima offering to drive us there and Jenny for thinking to pre-book the tickets on line as waiting in line to get in the cinema door we were told there were no seats left!

I give thanks for leaving here just as a bag of clanking bottles was delivered to the flat upstairs, and for a brief squall of wind and rain making me catch my breath and laugh as I stepped outside.

It's not often I go to a multi story car park... I give thanks for a space next to a racing green Mini that rather caught my eye. It's not often I go to a normal cinema... and I give thanks I now know if I ever do again to arrive half an hour after the nominated start time to avoid the endless adverts which didn't...

I give thanks for hearing more of the Lady in the Van, first encountered in Alan Bennett's moving Untold Stories which I discovered quite by chance some years ago at a very timely time to read it...for his observations on life, death, and writing... and his unintentional neighbour's on how the spirit gains in loss... and the sound space of a chord. Oh and for his speaking voice, accent and all expertly imitated...there's a quality I find so comforting in that!

I give thanks for a cuppa and cake at Jenny's and a banquet of leftovers for my tea. I give thanks all I have to do now is be a lady in the bath. I give thanks for a renal appointment tomorrow... best way to think of that is Lush!

Perfect playing field

I give thanks that combining the most unlikely (but most readily available) ingredients for tea yesterday made such a tasty meal. I give thanks I made most of it earlier so before Rachel came to help eat it I could persevere with remembering how to play a pleasing (to me) little guitar riff. I give thanks for Rachel saying she could hear music when she came in! I give thanks for remembering these gratitudes during the many complaints my arm has made about it since...

I give thanks for an invigorating treatment...and some interesting insights into a situation I hadn't thought of myself. For the joy of singing in harmony with others, and a particularly harmonious choir practice with much diverting humour among the diverse ranks, spontaneous applause and delicious cake...

I give for opening the fridge for milk for my morning cuppa vaguely wondering what I'd do with the spicy fajita for two kit they gave me at Trago to make up for the machine taking so long to process my train ticket request...and then of course remembering that this was just another dream! 

I give thanks for another quiet day in neighbouring dwellings, another day feeling well enough to get on with some of the many things left undone when I didn't...

I give thanks for a small solitary schoolboy wishing me 'Good afternoon' as he walked up the hill, the lights twinkling on on the ships that park in the night, and the twittering wagtail mayhem in their perching tree as I waited for a cab under the darkening blue of the sky.

Unaccountable

I give thanks for more strange and vivid dreams the last few nights - I've toured the mountains of Wales on a public service bus with a futon in for snoozing, and the steppes of Mongolia in a kind of flat bed/ger hybrid contraption. Maybe these ones aren't so strange... I need to lie down, I need to travel...my subconscious mind tries to find me a way... In the latest one I was accompanying my mother to a job interview she had in London and then helping her choose somewhere for lunch. This is stranger...companionable activities with my mother were very few and far between when she was alive and I never remember dreaming up one before.

I give thanks for waking up in the night and hearing the guinea pigs...

I give thanks for the beautiful dawn this morning... I love the various arrays of colours in their displays. For two magpies swooping past the window when I opened the kitchen blind, swiftly followed by another (chasing their joy?) making me laugh aloud...and for later coming across a gathering of them in a tree, jostling and changing places so hard to count for sure, seven for certain...maybe eight or nine.

I give thanks for finally choosing something I wanted to wear - an embarrassingly first world problem, I know, but my thirst for the social world is minimal just now and I find it helps to contrive the what feels like the right shell to peep out from.

I give thanks for making it to the knitting circle and for it being a companionable affair. For Linda kindly offering a lift home and a useful wait in Waitrose while she fetched the car...for bargains including a less than half price half Reblochon cheese...which no one else seemed to have heard of, so maybe that's why!

I think not...

I give thanks for the bliss of what presses the not think button...scenes in a modern Gothic movie of decaying mansions, empty moors and a tunnel of bare branched bowing trees...someone else's feelings in an autobiography - though it's by a cousin so not always unrelated...

For the quiet neighbours being at home, not least because I wanted to play my guitar and my hands hurt too much today...

For a letter from Kostas offering to fix me up with a serial killer he knows along the hall, as he gave his perennially single sister first choice and she preferred the axe murderer...

For the invigorating wind which sends a running up that hill tingle through my veins even when I'm strapped for energy and the effect is not unlike being in an electric chair...

For promising myself I would get myself somewhere today and wherever it is will be where I'm meant to be, even though I know it'll be the seafront and on a Sunday with the sun and tide out that can be unwelcomingly teeming... For resolving to find something to focus on beyond the folk with hands to hold and/or dogs to throw sticks for because, though I'm genuinely grateful they seem to be having a better time than me, it sometimes doesn't make mine feel better...

For a black ballet of crows on the thermals...

For jet skiers jumping white horses over the shoals...

For an unusual amount of deference from people who spotted me trying to hold both myself and my camera still in the buffeting gusts while extending the lens far enough to avoid human interest in the picture. At least I think it was deference...

I think...

.. therefore I must have something to say... I think...

I give thanks I'm writing this on my tablet as SwiftKey can almost do it by itself now...helpfully coming up with suggestions for the next word from sentences spelt out before. I reckon someone could make a 'spot your own gratitude' app along similar lines.. You put in your personal circumstances and when you're not very it could remind you ways perhaps you ought to be, or you could turn everything to the highest setting and see what your most perfect possible day could be...though that might not be an unmitigated blessing...

I give thanks for trying to be grateful... I give thanks for having some stuff I felt needed to do be done today (like writing my blog) as there was little I could do I wanted to do, and even less I wanted I could...

I give thanks for something to read and something to watch. For resisting the urge to relieve the boredom and hurl the first at the second as there wouldn't have been any satisfying smash and pent up rebel release with a paperback and flat screen TV...

I give thanks for watching Napoleon Dynamite for the first time since someone brought a pirate copy round not long after it came out telling me how much I'd enjoy it - which was maybe why I did not. This time, without anyone pointing out what I should like, I appreciated it much more... I give thanks for the celebration of those who are sure it's fine to be themselves...and are written a good part in life's script!

I give thanks for making cauliflower cheese and cherry apple pudding for two (days). You should do to yourself as you would have others, I think... So I did the washing up as well...

Observation post

Another random rambling post...a life first on the outside looking in, then on the inside looking out, you see so much and the more you know...and yes, Mr Weller, I concur... the more you know, indeed the less you do understand...and the bummer of it is that back in the box you rarely have anyone with whom to share fragmented insights and help each other understand it more!

I give thanks that waking up today hardly able to tell I had, checking my blood pressure suspiciously and discovering it at an all time low...I was so incensed at the unfair roller coaster my body seems to be on I started swearing repetitively...which reminded me of a Fatboy Slim track...and by playing that I self medicated with rhythm and fury! I'm grateful by sharing the song on Facebook (less inappropriate than here) it could be used by someone else in need of similar release...

I give thanks for channelling some of the ensuing tearful frustration at feeling well enough to want to go out but not well enough to get there into learning to play and sing a different song...oh and write it along the way of course... I give thanks for the neighbours being out a long time!

I give thanks for the opportunity this week to ponder with someone the dilemma of feelings you yearn to express to those who left you with them. If you have fondness still for the person who made you feel them you don't want to make them feel bad...but is it kinder to yourself sometimes to say? I give thanks we are both blessed with a way with words, an abundance of feelings and a yearning to use both wisely...

I give thanks for the quick change colours of the stormy sky, the camera shy rainbow and blushing sea before sundown, and for looking north as the night drew in and spotting this fragment I'd like to turn into the hem of a dress in case I ever go to the ball...

In the meantime I give thanks for getting on with the housework here and there - I am the queen of meaning to be clean - and for fresh linen. I've made my bed...I know, I know...my mother often told me!

Don't make a scene

I give thanks for odd hours respite respite from the aural torture...for the wind working up so my ears are turning that way...

for rising to the challenge of finding TV programmes to watch in the flat out, in flat times so that I only feel side lined not flat lined too...for what a relief it is to get warnings about strong language, sexual content, scenes of drug use and violence from the start so you know to get comfy and enjoy!

for the first episode of London Spy having one of the most gripping and realistic scenes of edge of the seat suspense I've watched for a very long time...for politely refraining to mention gratitude or otherwise for the scene everyone else had an opinion on...

for a recent QI mirthquake (for once I can't take credit for a very apt neology) with some exquisitely surreal humour giving me the longest laugh for another long while. Highly recommended - though perhaps, like the one above, best not watched with an aged upright aunt (or uncle) lest they become suddenly permanently laid out...

for a necessity to escape, necessities requiring attention and enough energy to attend to some...for discovering with Jenny it's possible to have too much cake, and for an extremely necessary lift home for a wallow in my bed in introspection...

for forgetting to take my camera because sometimes all I want to see is the sea and it may not always seem to be a different scene...

When no means no

I give thanks that my blood pressure has been within normal range all day... most especially as I have discovered that the phrase 'no energy' I was so blase about within the common side effects of the new drugs means just exactly that - not a bit tired, a bit feeble, happy for a nap, but almost totally immobilised - so the suggestion that I might have to raise the dose reactivated my resolve for (in this case obviously extremely passive) resistance. I give thanks that led to heart strengthening memories of other medical rebellions such as...

...exiting an operating theatre upright and with as much dignity as my gown allowed after frequent requests for appropriate info before I signed the consent form came to nothing...

...raising my head on my apparent deathbed and berating the senior radiologist and junior doctor who were arguing over the foot of it about whose fault my demise might be...

...and, during some other dance with the skinny dude lugging his ancient farm implement, telling a morning ward round crew that if I really did only have days at best unless I succumbed to their will, I'd prefer to spend them at home as there were things I'd like to do. 'Like what?' some bedside mannered, Boden wearing female politely enquired. 'Oh I don't know...have a long hot bath in my own bathroom...have sex maybe...' There was an extended pause... Gentle reader, I am perhaps not the most alluring of women at the best of times, but at this specific time alopecia had left me like a combover man in a frisky breeze and bladder cancer somewhat leaky in the nether regions, so it was in a tone of fascinated horror (after checking my marital status perhaps) that a male voice dared to enquire 'Did you have someone particular in mind?' 'Not sure yet...but how could anyone resist me?' I replied, raising my still intact eyebrows, and the team scuttled away hastily scribbling 'query brain mets?' no doubt.*

I give thanks that these recollections in turn reminded me of all the times I've asked myself 'What would you rather do - die trying or die wishing you had?' about seemingly insurmountable tasks, even merely getting further than the building doorstep on occasion...all the times my body has told me 'no' and I have refused to listen. 

So most stupendous thanks that eventually I eventually managed to walk in the rain to Eastcliff, to appreciate the monochrome magpies in the multicoloured leaves, the seagulls on the swimming pool and the lone surfer sitting patiently on their board on the unrelenting unwaviness...which brought to mind last night's dream of skinny dipping in warm water at twilight and more. Seriously, subconscious, enough already I think!

I give thanks for getting a load of washing done and draping it near the open windows...may as well try and catch the wind...

*How can you even be wondering? Of course I went home for a bath ;-)

Lost joys

Hmm...I find another batch of blog posts have gone missing. How can this be? I'm grateful I diligently post daily links on Facebook - however exasperating for non-following friends on Facebook (and blog followers who are not!) - so I can prove they existed, though why I think I need to prove it and to whom I'm not entirely sure! I give thanks for knowing nothing lasts for ever, though maybe vanity endures awhile...

I give thanks for thoughtful virtual words from various folk and tangible gifts of home made food from Rachel, with an extra long treatment to wake up my appetite a bit. The courgette and brie soup was particularly successful! I give thanks for a jolly Tesco driver bringing me some essentials and, as I failed to need enough to make up the minimum spend, a selection of foodbank donations too.

I give thanks for looking for a photo to add (soup is not especially scenic!) and finding this one from last week again and remembering I keep forgetting! There's an explanation below if you too have not encountered this before.

http://weburbanist.com/2011/12/07/marvelous-mystery-of-britains-money-trees/

I give thanks that though I still feel remarkably unmoved to move around at all, I am managing to do so and not feeling appreciably the worse for it. 

I give thanks for being sent a lovely love poem, not inspired by me you understand...but moving and inspiring me to unconditional joy for writer and intended.

I give thanks for probably the greatest and rarest joy possible for me just now - a day without anyone overhead or overheard elsewhere around and about. And thus I can also give thanks for watching a whole episode of Fargo without the need for headphones, enjoying the last few pages of a book I'd been saving without the need for earplugs...and a song I was writing becoming less undone without the need for permanent pianissimo. 

Plus ça change

I'm grateful I dressed for dinner last night...not dressing up you understand, just getting out of the dressing gown! No matter how invalid I feel I hate to feel invalid...

I give thanks for more entertaining dreams - my subconscious can't tell a full stop from a comma it seems... Or perhaps it was spending the evening catching up with First Dates.  All aspects of human frailty and fancy are there folks so give up your counselling sessions and your psychology degrees, curl up on the sofa...and watch everyone else doing whatever you've ever done wrong and learn!

Awake early this morning, I was so grateful I opened my eyes in time to the golden dawn... and thus all the other colours the sky and all light things became tinted after that! I'm grateful to be reminded there are some aspects of living here that are sublime.

I'm grateful for wandering around the internet a while, looking at all the fun things people were doing, and all the useful things, and feeling thoroughly pointless and miserable before finding this and reminding myself I am useful - I remind people of things!

"One mistake people often make when they take up the practice of mindfulness is that they form a false image of it. They think that being mindful means not being afraid, that it means being calm and at peace at all times. For me living in mindfulness means that I can live peacefully in non peace, that I can accept the reality of non calm. If I can look deeply into the nature of myself and touch my suffering, I can learn to live with my fear, my doubts, my insecurity, my confusion, my anger. My task is to dwell in these places like still water." Claude AnShin Thomas

From “At Hell’s Gate: A Soldier’s Journey from War to Peace” 

I'm not grateful for accidentally deleting a blog post from a couple of days ago...touch screens are all very well but you do have to pay attention to what you're touching! But coincidentally I also found a list of five things I was grateful for during a solitary trip to Northern Spain around fourteen years ago! Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Close to home

I give thanks for a mild night for a slow walk on the other side of the river, for the way the two communities share the banks for bonfire and fireworks, and how their reflections on water make pretty patterns even when not photographed well! I give thanks for the good natured crowds, the family friendly atmosphere and Laura's enduring friendship. Bless her - she only signed up for six months and it's over six years now...

I give thanks for torches being to hand when the living room pendant blew later and took out the whole circuit. Living in an old high ceilinged flat this means ladders, screw drivers and fiddling with fuse wire and Bakelite are required - and in my current state of feebleness hours of daylight to proceed very slowly through the process of repair - so I give thanks after fixing the problem before nightfall I decided not to risk the possibility of setting it off again by replacing the bulb while I'm home alone.

I give thanks that my blood pressure has dropped to merely worryingly high rather than causing 'I can't bear to look' thoughts (me) and 'I can't bear to tell you' thoughts (health care professional). I give thanks that though I don't feel even a little bit better physically, I do feel different emotionally...less stressy, more resigned. I give thanks for the final burst of bubbliness EPO gave me (and to the folk who helped me use that so well) but I suspect, like chemo, it's not really designed for elfin metabolism and it's probably wise to accept that any kind of life as I'd like to know it may well be over for good... I give thanks for the sense that even though my play may be done, my work here is done also...

I give thanks, as ever, for Basket Case...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUTGr5t3MoY

And, just in case...remember...wicker coffin, Pachelbel, Green Day and dance like no one is watching...Oh and no whining - there isn't time ;-)

Mega hurts

I'm grateful I've learned not to ask for help - it's all fine and dandy if you ask and it's given unto you but if you ask and it's not, managing without it seems far harder somehow. I'm grateful I've learnt where at all possible not to express myself apart from by means of gratitude, philosophy, humour and musings on how 'interesting' life is sometimes...So I'm particularly grateful to Laura for phoning me mid weep last night and knowing me well enough to understand if I'm doing the latter I probably need the former quite a lot!

I'm grateful to her for offering to pick up an urgent prescription from town and bringing me a pint of milk, some flowers and a Danish pastry... and on hearing the poignant story of how I came to discover I could play the guitar again offering to put the new strings I'd bought on mine. I'm grateful you can go to Youtube for the correct pitches for tuning.

I'm grateful I'm not in a lot of physical pain, and actually I'm grateful I feel quite limp and ill because it makes it easier to lie down and rest...being a still springy chicken stuck in an ever more couch potato body does feel like a fate worse than sometimes... (May all you get up and goers go swiftly at the end and not mingingly linger wondering if you can summon the energy to beat yourself about the head with the TV remote control!) I'm grateful for peace to hear the small birds singing...and to sleep with enchanting impossible dreams...

I give thanks for listening to the wild wind and rain and watching the scudding clouds in the blue sky after. I give thanks to Liz for telling me there's a webcam at the Coastwatch lookout here so I can see surf from the sofa. I give thanks to Laura's coming back in a bit to take me to see the local fireworks!

Chez moi

I give thanks to Colin for wishing me a 'Welcome home' last night - home isn't always where my heart is but that helped to make up for it...

I give thanks for some stretches of peacefulness now I'm here...and the bits where everyone around me was out and I could enjoy the feeling of being at peace and at home with myself. I give thanks for the sound of the rain and the sight of the whirling leaves in the wind. I give thanks the less there are the trees the more fireworks I might see as much as I love those sparkly things I won't be going out this evening!

I give thanks for working on a make it up as you go along knitting pattern and a make it up as you go along song. I give thanks for persevering with using the cheapy elastic capo I bought the other day
 - they were never my favourite sort but what used to be my favourite sort seems to have become obsolete in the many decades since I acquired it and, funnily enough, the newer styles don't seem to be designed with neurological damage in mind! I give thanks for finding one that I would like to try and optimistically putting it on my Christmas wish list...

I give thanks for attending to multiple medical matters by phone and, ambling about during an extended discussion with magnificent Mr McGrath's softly spoken secretary, discovering the aforementioned mislaid ancient capo's hiding place... I give thanks for the lady knowing what I was talking about and wishing me 'happy strumming' at the end of the call!

I give thanks for my own bath, my own bed, my own duvet and pillows and my own heating. It's not central and only marginally adequate but oh so turn off and onable! I give thanks for Potter's Cough Remover doing exactly what it says...for hours...

Leaves

I give thanks for enough train delays to turn the morning's mild misery at the thought of going home into a mission to get here before nightfall.

I give thanks for patiently observing the falling leaves when we weren't moving, watching the changing scenery as the miles begun to unwind, the changing sky as the hours passed and the constant mystery of others' lives as glimpsed from a moving carriage window.

I give thanks for making it home while there was still a little light left in the sky, to Jenny leaving the flat all nice and clean and tidy, and to Jan for her kindness, patience and enjoyable company the last few days.

I give thanks my cunning plan of leaving a frozen pint of milk to defrost in the fridge ready for my return worked a treat...and that I didn't have my heart set on eating any of the veg I left in there without one...

Highly lightly

I give thanks for shared fish and chips for tea last night and a valiant attempt at finishing my little bottle of fruit Crabbies. I give thanks that my lack of talent at drinking alcohol doesn't affect my ability to have fun!

I give thanks I thanked Jan for bringing me a cup of tea yesterday afternoon...as she brought me one in bed this morning too! For our favourite guide taking us on a Southern Highlights tour where it soon became apparent the higher we went the more opaque the light would be...and the itinerary we were expecting had been changed this week for the winter schedule. I give thanks for these two factors cancelling each other out so that we went more or less where we were expecting!

I give thanks for the how the already beautiful autumn colours we enjoyed when we arrived a few days ago have become even more breathtaking so that even the murkiest parts of our journey were gloriously glowing... Though not easily captured on camera! For apple cake for lunch and a delicious Thai tea.

Wouldn't have mist it

I give thanks to Jan for bringing me a cup of tea as I rested in bed a little while ago - what a lovely treat that is!

I give thanks for being exhausted after another exhilarating day. For velvet toned Tony taking us on an incredibly scenic journey on an incredibly beautiful day with bright blue skies and mild sunshine and mist swathes clinging in the arms of the passes, lingering on the lakes in the late morning and creeping round the knees of the livestock in the fields as sunset turned the distant hills pink and the water gold. I give thanks for the multicoloured trees and their reflections, alpaca, a black donkey, dewy cobwebs...For going places I'd not been before and seeing ones I had again in different light...oh and for having a friend to do these things with of course!