I don't know

After sleeping like a small broken twig in a big scary forest, I was very grateful when I finally made out of bed this morning to find John and Jo back with a cup of tea waiting and the smell of warm buttery pastries filling the kitchen. It is a mystery to me that people I've known for thirty something years are still happy to know me, in small doses at least! Admittedly it's only two people, and they come as a pair, and I know that most fifty something folk have gathered far more moss, probably even have people who've known them their whole lives and still want to, but I don't know what it's like to be one of those people. And that's why it's a mystery, and why I'm so grateful that they came and spent some time with me at a particularly miserable time of year for people for whom such experiences are...

I give thanks for their gift of a big box of Sanctuary goodies. It's very unusual for me to get big presents and I'm always very grateful for little ones, of course, but it made me feel special and kind of real somehow, which I know probably doesn't make much sense but it doesn't have to...feelings aren't logical and it's nice to have nice ones!

I give thanks for the quiet times since they left this lunchtime... I'm grateful of course that my neighbours are better at social interaction than I, but it doesn't mean I always appreciate listening to them when I'd rather be napping or curling up quietly with a book, or catching up with a few things worth watching on TV. After yesterday's almost non stop grazing I don't know if I'll feel like eating anything as big as a meal again for days... but I'm grateful there's lots of things left to eat when I do! I'm grateful for the prospect of a bubbly bath, a buttered crumpet and a mug of Roobosch tea, earplugs and Alan Bennett reading to me in my head.