A walk in the dark

I thought I'd leave this as late as I could, hoping I'd summon up some more gratitude to share...or that if I failed, a less successful post would slip under the radar. Some days, even after all this practice, it can still be the greatest challenge of all to truly give thanks...

Anyone can be grateful for great things can't they? I understand about miles and shoes, that the ones that seem shiny may not be comfy to wear, and the ones that seem comfy may not get you anywhere at all, but I can see most people's shoes are not designed for stumbling along alone like mine and wish sometimes I could try a step or two that way ... And even if I manage not to be envious, which be honest I don't always succeed at either, it can seem on a hard day as if I've only really sadness to share which isn't the idea at all...

So anyway, I'll shut up now and try to come up with some gratitudes without any qualifying 'even thoughs'...

I give thanks that even when I think I can't deal with stuff, I can.
I give thanks that I've somewhere to live, and food to eat, heat and light and water.
I give thanks I have a bed, a bath, a TV and the internet. I give thanks I can read and write.
I give thanks that I have people who are quite fond of me.
I give thanks I can appreciate all kinds of weather.
I give thanks for rubbish and recycling bins and when I took things to put in them I took my camera too. It couldn't work out how bright it was at first but I kind of like the photo before it did...

Missed a bit

I give thanks for neighbouring dwellings being strangely silent yesterday evening, and indeed most of today. Some folk had clearly left the building but some were home and so quiet it was tempting to call out 'Are you OK? Should I call an ambulance?' But I didn't disturb the peace and give thanks for the joy of not having to watch something on TV just to drown out the sound of someone else doing something similar...

I give thanks for a wonderful dream of the warmth of not being alone, and for managing not to be too miserable waking up and finding it not real. That's always the tricksy bit isn't it - to be aware of what you're missing but not let the missing of it spoil what you actually have?

I give thanks for the morning sun on the lichen and a green field not far away; for remembering there might be mushroom and goats' cheese filo pies in the farmers' market and accepting I'd just have to snack on the memory as there was no way my body was taking me out today...

I give thanks for managing to avoid seeing the result of the men's doubles final in Melbourne so that I could properly enjoy the highlights on BBC...excellent stuff!

I give thanks for sorting out a cupboard and realising something else I'm missing this winter is ladybirds. Usually there's a bunch of them move in in October and half heartedly hibernate here but I've not seen one...nor heard their familiar buzzy rattle and hum... But most of all I think today (so far anyway) I give thanks for cleaning in a corner that rarely sees the light of day and thus finding a rose quartz earring loved and lost...and often missed a lot!

Oh bother!

Hmmm...well I give thanks I wasn't in as much pain yesterday as today or yesterday wouldn't have happened, and it would have been a shame to waste that lovely weather and the treat of being taken out somewhere.

I give thanks for a murky grey day today and that though I had to go out again it was only for an appointment at the local hospital, and to pick up some veg at the supermarket nearby. I give thanks I could afford a cab, and was able to book one with a driver I know so I could have a few minutes conversation too before the long hush of the weekend.

I give thanks for much snoozing planned over the next couple of days which I hope will be beneficial to my health, and detrimental to the doldrums of being stuck indoors with few things to do that don't cause too much pain to bother unless I must. I give thanks for an expected visitor not coming again so my freezer's stocked full of food...

I give thanks for lots of recorded TV to watch and, as I was scraping the schedule barrel to find anything to record at all, that the selection should assist in the arrangement of naps! I give thanks that if I don't mind a grovel and a rummage behind the TV I have a new hdmi cable so I can reattach the DVD player and watch one of those instead.

I give thanks for books as yet unread, and a big Lush bath melt that will last for two or three fragrant wallows while I do...

Ex files

I've been having a bad attack of horizonitis lately - where you get irritated by seeing the same ones over and over again! I give thanks the ones I have regular access to are so beautiful of course, but that doesn't mean I don't yearn for roads less (preferably never) travelled and, if not mountains, at least more moor...or a different shore...

I give thanks I'm very careful what I wish for these days and, however unlikely the dreams I want to come true might seem to be, there's still a hint of possible in them. So, just as what I wanted to do at Christmas somehow actually happened and I came to be where I wanted to be, today by a curious conjunction of events, I got to my longed for birthday destination... and I was very grateful! Look...a horizon I've never seen before! Bliss...

OK, it's not my birthday but I don't think anything very companionably or adventurously birthdayish is going to happen then. This year it's not just a difficult date, but a rubbish day as well - a Sunday so folk will be caught up with family as well as partners, and hopeful ever afters, and not even much in the way of public transport to take my solitary self somewhere I'd like to go. I give thanks I'm happy to compromise with the universe if it's happy to co-operate with me...

So obviously, tremendous thanks to Jared for reading my mind so successfully...and for the pleasure of his company as well as his amiable chauffeuring skills around an unexpectedly large chunk of the north of the county. I give thanks for a lush lunch, lots of snowdrops (also on the wish list) and a surprise low level flypast by some speedy jets. Also for the answer to a tentative enquiry as to whether his wife knows the daughter of a man I used to (as Facebook seems to suggest) being 'Yes, she came to our wedding!'

Home now I give thanks for headphones and earplugs when the wild things are inside the building, and pain buffers to stop the aches in their tracks awhile...

Mind how you dream

I I don't always have good dreams, or ones I'd like to hear other people have for real...last night it was all arguments and fighting in sleep world. I kept waking up relieved to find them not true then dozing off again and having more, so I was grateful when all that was properly over and I could get up and get on!

I give thanks after little prompting Jared said he was free to meet tomorrow as I think I've been too reclusive the last couple of weeks, and it's a few months since we did. I was also grateful as it meant I had to go out today and do the boring in town chores... and could blow those mind cobwebs away. I don't mind going out in wet and wild weather - I give thanks for the exhilaration (and getting warm and dry afterwards!) but I didn't mind when it cleared up to almost warm and dry before I left the building either...

I give thanks for Mima suggesting we meet up for a cuppa while I was out and sharing a topped up pot, a toasted tea cake and a lot of chuckles...

I give thanks for the mesmerising waves which I never got round to photographing because I was mesmerised!

I give thanks for getting the not heavy but awkwardly bulky shopping home, and after another cuppa falling into a much needed nap on the sofa with something quite missable being missed on TV.

I give thanks it's someone else's turn to cook tea...Uh-oh, only in my dreams, right? Oh, and I give thanks to Charlie for being fire alarm monitor...it keeps going off tonight but with all the leaks we're more likely to drown than burn at the moment we reckon.

How strange how sweet

I give thanks for a good rant with Rachel, an excellent shepherd's pie and sublime chocolate cookies...so good my mojo even popped back to sample them, making my description of the fox cries diminishing as it wandered off elsewhere go like this. 'You could hear it walking down the road...well not literally...it wasn't wearing high heels...not that sort of foxy!'

I can't give thanks for the neighbours arguing as I don't like hearing it or feeling the anger and distress, but it made me grateful for not having someone to row with...and the ensuing protracted silence was bliss!

I give thanks for Colin seeing into my mind and sending me a picture of the North Devon bay with the balcony...or did I see into his because he's the one who's been there not me...except in my dream!

I give thanks for the local food bank liking a recent post. I thought it must be a mistake at first... I mean we're 'friends' on Facebook but I wouldn't expect the people who run it to read my blog, and it's not like there was a relevant photo on it. Then I remembered I gave thanks for local food bank collection points in that one so I guess they did...

I give thanks for finally sleeping on the most bizarrely warm and bright of winter nights with an owl party going on in the gardens, a late breakfast with ginger marmalade to remind me of dear Biddy and a leisurely pleasurely day. I give thanks for the wave cam down the road...
http://www.teignmouth-nci.org.uk/live-webcam.html (dawn to dusk)

this banned advert about the alleged benefits of a vegan diet (dusk to dawn?)
http://metro.co.uk/2016/01/26/petas-vegan-sex-advert-has-been-banned-from-the-super-bowl-5644649/

and for just remembering there are still some cookies left!

Having a whale of

I give thanks for being woken up in the night by a fox barking again...well, if you're going to be woken up by a noise I'd rather it was a wild animal rather than a wild human ...or one of their domestications. There's a local Jack Russell wears a bandana and I'm afraid to my mind this sentence was already bad by the end of the first five words let alone the following three...

I give thanks for going back to sleep and having a great dream early this morning - the best bit of the day so far by far. I was having lunch with someone I know a bit, and some friends I used to know a lot somewhere in North Devon where there's a big sweeping bay. In my dream I knew the place well but I couldn't put a name to it in waking life. Anyway we were sitting in the sunshine on a high up balcony looking out over the still calm shallow water and I knew something good was going to happen and was saying 'Look, watch this!' and a big whale shark shaped and marked fish swam close to the shore giving a final wriggle just at the edge of the water to push itself out onto the sand. A fisherman went down to meet it and put his hand in its enormous mouth and pulled out a toy doll...then the fish went back and got another. What's that? You don't think it's that good a dream? Well it seemed good to me and my companions in my sleep...

I give thanks for sorting out a bag of fabric and yarn scraps fit only for recycling. I give thanks that after phoning up to check the place that takes them was open...getting there and finding they don't take them more...getting to the Red Cross skip in the car park and finding that full...Linda kindly took them off my hands!

I give thanks that thanks to my acting as a solicitor there's a management company to report repairs required to nowadays instead of a shouty landlord. I'll give even more thanks if they sort them out of course...

I give thanks after going to the knitting group and nodding and smiling (I typed sliming the first time!) in at least some of the right places, I got back and finished off making a veggie shepherd's pie for tea with Rachel... plus rustled up some gluten free chocolate cookies for a surprise as she can't eat the normal kind. Guess I'll always feel a failure but you can't say I don't try... Here's another picture from last night.

Experiential

I give thanks for feeling the drear and doing it anyway...and thus discovering what no master chef nor Come Dine With Me contestant has ever demonstrated ie. that the most foolproof way to ensure your eyes don't sting and water when you're chopping onions is to be sobbing your heart out while you do. I give thanks I know I'm not a wimp for crying...it's just my body trying to do the best it can
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/healthy-living/wellbeing/a10637/the-health-benefits-of-crying/

I give thanks I didn't realise that Eurosport were going to have exclusive rights to the Australian Open when I downgraded my Sky package last year...otherwise I would have been sorely tempted not to. It was meant to be a cost cutting exercise and financially it has been, but at what cost emotionally! Match fixing or not I need my fix of live tennis and I reckon a couple of hours shouting at the the TV could be just what the doctor ordered - if I were the type to take orders from doctors of course. Oh well, Clive's no longer available to do the early morning sausage sarnie breakfasts any more either...

I give thanks for resisting the urge to gatecrash Gary's road trip. Much as I'd have loved the company and the journey of changing horizons it would have been a bit of a miserable place to wander round in the winter on my own til he was ready to come back. I know because I spent a weekend on my own there in the summer once and it's really not designed for it! So, as in the long run it would have probably made me feel worse not better, everyone who's finding me grumpy and/or uncommunicative at the moment can give thanks too...

I give thanks that neither the Council nor the tenants have still really got the hang of the communal recycling bins on the terrace so that a trip to the big ones was necessary. I give thanks that I didn't get round to this til the day was turning murky and folk few and far between as, while I've been compared to a canine on a good day, on a bad one it's definitely Hound of the Baskervilles! I give thanks for the pretty sky and a bit of a brisk walk to see it better...while exercise is widely acknowledged to be good for depression I've yet to hear of a remedy for depression partly caused by the loss of ability to do anything the doer actually considers exercise...but a bit of a brisk walk is better than none at all.

Existential

I give thanks for... Oh gosh, I don't know! For keeping on keeping on I suppose, keeping on trying to find a modicum of meaning and purpose in another day utterly devoid thereof. I give thanks for not trying too hard, because sometimes you just have to accept there isn't one, except to accept that is the case.

I give thanks for feeling well enough to feel bored, cooped up and restless, for understanding this is a privilege no matter how like penance or punishment it seems sometimes.

I give thanks for all the other privileges so easy to take for granted...a home and food and clothing, for power in the sockets and water in the tap.

I give thanks for the neighbouring households being quiet at bedtime so I could sleep without earplugs and be woken up in the night by owls instead. I give thanks for remembering the neighbouring households don't mean to cause me distress with their noisiness - they just have interactional companionable lives unlike my mostly silent merely solitary existence.

I give thanks Alan Bennett writes exceedingly long books...and sometimes they make me laugh out loud. I wonder if the neighbours are surprised when they hear me and realise I exist. It surprises me, I can tell you!

Point break

I give thanks for Alan Bennett sharing his thoughts on a long dark miserable night. Sometimes it's nice to feel there's someone there even when you know there isn't.

I give thanks for the miracle that squiggles on a page, or pixels on a screen can make you feel things...

I give thanks for the miracle of finally getting my miserable self up and out to do what had to be done today. For the mild sunshine and free tea from Waitrose to sit and watch the surfers on ice blue waves off the Point. For somehow getting the very heavy shopping home...

I give thanks it was the lid of the salt grinder came off not the ketchup bottle, if it had been sauce cascading over my dinner I'd have had to throw the rug away as well as the food. I give thanks for the neighbours having fun and that I was so tired I kept falling into a nap anyway...

I give thanks for the practice of metta and food bank collection points. Sometimes the lack of opportunity to give is harder than the not receiving.

Just a little sharp

I give thanks today wasn't all about medical matters...and for the most part amicable when it was! I give thanks for being told I'd been 'a little sharp' in an email as this showed attention was being paid to my feelings. Though I prefer not to feel anger, let alone express it or express how I expressed it for the purposes of admiration or commiseration, sometimes it seems if you're too nice and understanding too often you're not giving other people the chance to remember you are the subject in your own life as well as an object in theirs...

I give thanks that sometimes some people are actually quite interested in what I might have to say and Cancer Research have bought me a ticket to London to tell them more...

I give thanks for still feeling quite well, and for a dark damp chilly day to get on with various overdue home based chores - letters written, laundry done, lentil stew bubbling away on the stove...

I give thanks for a very busy friend finding time to exchange a few virtual words. Sometimes being awesome all by yourself every day gets a little lonesome....

I give thanks I've finished ravelling my bolero...though if you look closely you'll see I'd not finished the sewing part when this was taken and there's still a needle attached!

Trying times

I give thanks for a bit more vicarious walking in the Himalayas last night...I know I should try to be grateful for what I've got, but I do still lust after wandering!

I give thanks for still feeling quite unusually well and for deciding, as I often do this time of year, that a sunny day was a good day to go commando way. Locals will know this is poetic licence regarding a scenic train journey. Non locals, fear not...it's much too cold to leave off any garment layers! 

I give thanks the first train pulled away as I and another passenger stood trying to open the doors because it gave us a chance to bond in indignant astonishment...and also gave me a chance to buy a ticket and a cuppa and get a nice seat to enjoy it on the next train which was a proper one with tables! 

I give thanks for convincing myself a kind of fabric I wanted was to be found in the town at the end of the line...and that it was, even though I didn't know the shop I bought it in was! I give thanks for finding lots of other little bargains too including a delicious potato and onion filo pastry for my lunch. I give thanks for trying to spread smiles and warmth...literally as well as metaphorically by advising market traders that bubble wrap is the best insulation...

I give thanks that I always try to be patient and understanding towards those more mentally challenged than myself. Sometimes, especially when it's healthcare professionals and my healthcare they are failing to understand, I admit I'm not very good at it...but I do try! I give thanks I arrived home too late to return another pointless point missing call from my particular current nemesis as, though I've resolved to try and limit my explanations to words of one syllable, I'd be sorely tempted to insert an extraneous two syllable one in the sentence 'Read the notes!'

What kind of chi was that?

I give thanks for a happy few hours with Rachel including a large and delicious meal, some surprising synchronicity and a few minute's belly dancing practice. I don't think the Sultan's virtue will be at any risk just yet...

I give thanks for the weather being clement enough to have my bedroom window open a smidge and wake to the sounds of birdsong instead of inclement weather. I give thanks for great dreams including being in a cafe with every possible kind of sweet or savoury treat you could imagine...

I give thanks to Jenny for cleaning my windows so I could see the lovely day outside...and to my body for taking me out in it so (relatively) vigorously.

I give thanks to Shining Sea and Heavenly Spring - acupuncture points in case you're wondering, and not normally ones I normally have prodded. You've seen the Specsavers advert with the sandwich and the rollercoaster? Well this was 'What kind of Chi was that?' - a sort of natural EPO that left me unusually dynamic mentally and physically. Stacey Dooley should definitely investigate! 

I give thanks for it helping me be wise and capable about fixing the malfunctioning TV, the malfunctioning printer and some malfunctioning parts of the NHS...and also serene enough not to fret about the things beyond my fixing...like some malfunctioning websites, phone lines and people! I give thanks for the courage to buy something I like to think one day there'll be an occasion to wear...

I give thanks for a buzzy busy day and for still feeling up for doing something more this evening...though that's also a bit sad because of course I'm home alone with nowhere to go and no one to bounce off and even the housework's done! Oh well...a change from wanting a rest is good I guess...

Purple laze

I give thanks for a favourite for last night's supper - roast peppers, hummus and brown rice. I know it seems mixed up but sometimes unlikely things do go together well... I give thanks for an unusually exciting episode of Endeavour to munch it in front of.

I give thanks for a rather lazy day today with a second nap even before first breakfast!

I give thanks for ideal weather for not poking my nose outdoors

I give thanks that it's Rachel's turn to provide food so all I had to do was clear up the kitchen, wait and salivate...

I give thanks that although I didn't Natter I did Knit, and finished my little purple cardigan made from leftover yarn from Bob's big purple jumper. I've got to decide on a button yet so image to follow as they say...

Chill factor

I give thanks that Tesco make the finest butter mash... My son does an excellent one too...but it's harder to get it delivered! I give thanks thanks for adding Quorn Cumberland sausages, broccoli, carrots and fried red onions to make a cosy Sunday lunch not very long after I got up very late today...

I give thanks for an extremely chilled day after last night's chilling. Low temperatures, and hurtling at my highest speed are not conditions my body takes kindly to, but while aches and pains and pesky cramps kept me awake last night I was able to give thanks for all the kindness and concern I'd received as well as practical assistance. Due to pride, independence and memories of being told I shouldn't, or being told I can and then being let down I avoid asking for help if it's at all possible, but it was a situation where avoidance was impossible and I was touched by people's caring attitudes. I also give thanks for deciding an electric blanket might be soothing when everything seems to be hurting, shopping around and finding one that seems just the ticket in a sale, so that's just what the patient ordered!

I give thanks for a few snips and stitches making an eBay bargain Fat Face tunic fit better and thus be fitter for its intended purpose. I give thanks for the merino and cashmere cardi I won as well...Oh my, I've never worn merino and cashmere before and I've been seriously missing out! So that's why people with more money than me don't walk round like Michelin men when it's cold...

I give thanks for one of a certain Swedish car manufacturer's Sky Atlantic idents showing a car following a snowplough along a wintry road, and remembering being in a similar position in a Renault 4 in the Atlas mountains many years ago when they were having unusually heavy falls and the drifts made fake walls at the side of the scary single tracks to kid my brain we were safer than we were. Good to recall adventures on a day of couches and potatoes...Of course, if I'd had less holidays I could have had more merino cardies but having to choose I'd always choose the experience over the thing. I'd like both now please... As long as the things give me nice experiences like being warm!

Are friends eclectic?

I give thanks to Rachel for giving me a chunk of selenite which I find very conducive to metitation. I give thanks to the neighbours being out which I find helps too!

I give thanks for putting a little make up on for the first time in I don't know when. Like rediscovering alcohol I can see why people do!

I give thanks for an eclectic mix of music on a BBC2 compilation of performances over several decades

I give thanks to Gary and Stephy for inviting me to a party...and as it's the year of living differently for saying yes and going though it was rather outside my comfort zone to spend the evening with so many strangers.

I give thanks to Colin for reminding me to wear a necklace under my scarf so my neck would still be decorated if it was warm enough to take off my scarf. I give thanks for wearing my scarf as it certainly was not..and anyway it matched my new greeny blue lock of hair! I give thanks to Jan for telling me where I could buy the stuff to make greeny blue hair and thus achieve an ambition I've had since my late teens.

I give thanks to Mima for plying me with hot decaf tea and lending me leggings when I realised on the way home that my keys had jumped out of my bag and hidden under the venue table, and my sparkly tights were likely to freeze to my legs. I give thanks to Laura for finding an old spare set, driving me home...and cheering me on while I picked the lock with a railcard when the downstairs one proved too old to match the lock. I give thanks for my friends...and for being home in my flat!

Hot and cold running late

It was too cold to get out of bed this morning so I'm grateful I'd already decided a quiet restful day was a good idea. I'm grateful my desire for hot wet caffeine eventually got me up a little bit...and for thinking to fill up my hot water bottle to snuggle back under the duvet with too. That soon warmed me up... and wet the bed as I didn't have the stopper in properly! I'm grateful years as a urology patient means this wasn't quite as destructive as it might have been and after stripping it I could still pop back under the quilt for a snooze...

I'm grateful I was sure that just right piece of fabric for lengthening a lovely little top I got on eBay was somewhere on the premises and the search spurred me on climbing up ladders and grovelling on hands and knees to rummage in various storage areas, as I'm sure I needed some exercise as well as rest...and now I'm quite sure it wasn't!

I'm grateful for chocolate chili rooibos tea from the Christmas before last but not tried before. Very cockle warming...

I'm grateful for finally reaching a suitable temperature to brave trying on various outfits to wear out tomorrow night. In deference to the occasion and the venue I thought it would be nice not to wear jeans, leggings, a fleece or woolly pully, but also avoid unsuitable expanses of flesh for a fifty and rather a lot train passenger minus a plus one on the coldest night of the year...So, as that took forever, I'm grateful for left over pasta for my tea!

I'm grateful if I finish that quick I might have time and energy left for one more task I'd really like to complete today...without forgetting to remake my bed!

Madly deeply blue

I give thanks I was out in the sunshine today...the bits where I was out in the shade were f-f-f-freezing! I give thanks for the pretty changing light on the sea - soft greeny greys to impossibly blue, for the fine dropped rain showers and fleeting rainbows between the clouds.

I give thanks for a siskin paddling in the paddy field on the flat roof over the porch. I didn't know what it was so I'm grateful I remembered to look it up in my bird book...and that I've finally sorted out my cormorants and shags! The cormorants with white throats I rarely see are the cormorants...

I give thanks for pasta with roast red onions, peppers, feta and pesto cooking for my tea...

I give thanks for Alan Rickman...an admirable and versatile actor and, it always seemed, a fine human being also. His passing sorely grieves me.

What am I (like)?

I'm grateful as a slipling girl studying for my Speech and Drama exam I learnt D. H Lawrence's What is he? The first few lines still echo in my mind reminding me that to live and to be is at least as important as having an occupation with a recognised job title...well, unless you're producing a CV of course!

I'm grateful that in searching for a link to this poem I found one which also references a wonderful place and a great use for the kind of things you find there...
http://www.greenwoodcourses.com/dh-lawrence-on-the-subject.html

I'm grateful I could legitimately call myself a writer (even 'literary award winning' at a push!) Poet? Composer? Designer? Without a doubt... Freelance philosopher? Oh most definitely...as far as anything is definite within this illusion we call life! I could of course, as others do on places like Facebook, label myself anything I do or am, though mostly I reckon I am grateful to be just a human, being (I hope!) the best that I can...so I don't. 

Sometimes people ask though, don't they...and I hate being defined by my non-working status, let alone the reasons behind it...so today I was not just grateful but down right delighted to be reminded I am in fact something you can write with capital letters...something deserving of travel expenses to do it in London for a day if I choose, something I think could be quite a conversation stopper if you just announced it with emphasis on the first syllable and declined to explain. I am a Lay Reviewer!

Hmmm...so what else is new? I give thanks for a long lie in under my cosy downy quilt...for the bright sunshine streaming in my bedroom window giving me an interesting idea for a photograph which came out OK but is not OK to show you... For the downstairs door being open when a delivery driver arrived so I didn't have to leave my flat to get a package. For making progress with my cardigan, but not too fast so my hands don't get too sore. Though not ready to wear yet, it's got to the stage when I can try it on and look in the mirror and think 'Hey...didn't you do well girl?' so I also give thanks that I do!

Metta physical

I give thanks for an enjoyable evening with Rachel. I give thanks I guessed she'd guess why I hadn't cooked tea! As well as the usual I give thanks for her showing me an interesting personality test quiz which purports to show you which animal you are like. I give thanks for also guessing beforehand which one it would say I am, though if you're ambivalent about an answer you can always do the test again and see what else you also tend to be (my other one's a clown fish!)

http://icould.com/buzz/?ref=menu

I give thanks for a little spiritual debate about the practice of metta towards the self... and also for the practice of belly dancing moves which might have been a tad too physical for my self, but it's the year of living differently so I couldn't resist when she offered to show me!

I give thanks for remembering I'd been given ginger ice creams when I wanted chocolate caramels and remembered I'd given my last ones away...

I give thanks nobody wanted me to do anything sociable outdoors today with such a fierce cold wind blowing, but that I live somewhere so amiably sociable anyway and had to go out and do the things I didn't do yesterday and ended up having lots of chats.

I give thanks for a spending Heidi and Ivor's Christmas gift wisely on DVDs on the film of Fargo plus the first series which I'm looking forward to watching again while I wait for series 2 to come out to buy...and series 3 to be made. I give thanks for the Coen Brothers!

Just for one day

Gee, I give thanks that Colin is writing my blog today...I could do with an evening off for my body to process a teacup full of beer! Ah, shucks...I forgot to give him my password tho, so I'll have to do it myself...

I give thanks I'd a full schedule of utterly abandonable things to do today, because sometimes the best thing to do with a day is just to be...And for the joy of just being with someone else being joyous of course!

I give thanks for the pair of magpies waiting for us at the Warren...for the cows showing us which way was north. For the astonishing bright sunshine and just enough waves for one of us to get a wetsuit on (no, no prizes for guessing!) For not so many waves as to make the one of us who forgot to charge their camera battery get cross...

So far 2016 has been the year of living differently...so I give thanks for doing yet another thing I'd not done before - putting wax on a surfboard (and for avoiding any slang phrase for this so you don't think I mean something else)

For a flask of tea, and Thornton's excellent caramels...for big puddles on the road that wasn't really closed, and for driving down the road that said it was closed and through the big puddles at immoderate and splashy speed.

For a pub lunch to pick at, plus a chauffeured trip to Waitrose because cooking tea was one of the things that got abandoned...and to Waitrose for having such excellent ready made food. For being able to talk about serious things but also for lots of laughter...

I give thanks to David Bowie for the title of this post, and for much much more of course. Be heroes everyone...be heroes every day!

Tell me on a Sunday

I give thanks that last night I finally got to the bottom of the pile of washing up, the heap of ironing and the layer of crud on the carpets! I figured if I stayed absolutely still today this blissful state of affairs would continue but, alas, staying completely still is something I'm still completely pants at...

I give thanks for doing enough to keep the Sunday doldrums away anyway... for remembering to remember with compassion my poor mother who chose to try and end her life on a Saturday night. And, as nobody thought to impress upon my fourteen year old self that this wasn't my fault, that it wasn't the thought of spending another day with me that pushed her over the edge, to pop back and tell myself instead...as sometimes I have to do when I am most forlorn.

I give thanks for always trying to think kindly of those who seem thoughtless or unkind. They're pretty much always unhappy, you know, or at best unaware of other people's feelings which is a pretty sad state in itself.

I give thanks for watching a film I thought I saw years ago (2001: A Space Odyssey) and am now quite sure I didn't! For as much more knitting as my very painful hands would allow (not much) and that my purple cardi is now very nearly finished. It has both sleeves and fronts and the back all complete and joined up so I can tell that wearing it will feel almost like a hug...well more so than a virtual one anyway!

I give thanks for successful but still within limits bidding for more cosiness on ebay. For a nap. For this picture of the sun from another day. No, it's not irrelevant...nothing's ever irrelevant, it's all joined up...and sometimes if you join it up right in your head it feels like a hug too...

Lucky in love

I give thanks for waking in dark of morning, before any pain and sorrow could creep into any corners of my being...

For stilling my mind and contentedly contemplating my breath...until the rain outside became so monsoon heavy I just had to get up and look, even though it was still pitch black... I give thanks for watching the lights of two ships do-si-doing around each other in the channel, and one shining a search light bright beam right across the patch of sea I see...

http://www.rachellelamb.com/blog/2015/1/10/may-you-fall-madly-in-love
For logging on to Facebook and seeing an old friend had posted a link to this beautiful poem which made me think I really must give thanks that I am so lucky in love! Though great passions and tendernesses have tended to pass me by. I am blessed with such an abundance of appreciation for life's little moments, miracles and madnesses. I give thanks that I love myself enough to make up for all the folk who've found it so hard to do so...and have love enough left over for them as well!

I give thanks for falling back to sleep again cosily. For the heady scent of narcissi in my messy kitchen. For Linda for a link to pipes and drums as I've not heard (or seen) them before...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0mypcwk2M4

And for thinking of somewhere to go with Laura on an afternoon with more torrential rain and a decent hailstorm too (I give thanks that I love weather!)...somewhere neither of us had been before but which we definitely want to go back to to see more...and eat more (and all in a most excellent cause!)
http://www.discoverhannahs.org/seale-hayne/about-seale-hayne/

But soft, what light?

I give thanks for playing a game of table tennis last night, and for a little robin sitting on my hand the night before...some very simply deciphered symbolism from my subconscious and enjoyable in the dreamtime too!

I give thanks for a long lie in, watching the weather change...and for bright sunshine illuminating the fine drops of rain in the lightest shower. I tried to get a photo of it without success, but when I uploaded and examined the failures I remembered I took this yesterday of a little patch of brightness on the tree outside that happens when it's sunny and something on the side of the building reflects on the trunk. At least I think that's what it is...

I give thanks for taking it very easy when I did finally rise...and for a lovely peaceful day in the neighbourhood to enjoy it. I give thanks for understanding all things change whether you like them the way they are or not, and for some very comfy earplugs!

I give thanks for nearly catching up with the most urgent domestic chores...it's always a mystery how cooking for one still seems to result in washing up for at least a dozen! I give thanks for all the delicious leftovers.

I give thanks for some bargain train fare spotting...and ebay shopping...

Nurture's way

I give thanks for paracetamol and excessive expletives getting me to sleep last night despite the pain. Swearing has been scientifically proven to help you know... I give thanks for more excellent dreams, though none have come true... yet!

I give thanks for having to go out for a blood test appointment, or else I might have done what my body really wanted and flagrantly flolloped instead...

I give thanks for a bus waiting outside the surgery as I emerged in the hissing rain. It wasn't heading homeward but there's nothing wrong with my spontaneity and sense of adventure so I got on it anyway...

I give thanks for the sight of a non-bearded young hipster in a skinny plum coloured suit and matching knitted beanie in a town not noted for its sartorial style. Respect, sir!

I give thanks for being a tad more comfortable this evening...and for looking forward to my tea. I always want extra nurturing when I hurt a lot, which is of course both understandable and wise, but in lieu of tenderness from others this often results in yearning for a comfort banquet of home cooked food which can be challenging to produce in the  circumstances. Sauces are stirred and batters beaten until I submit rather that optimum smoothness is reached...but if it's only me eating them who cares as long as they taste good and make me feel good. I give thanks that they do!

Nothing to sea here

Despite various parts of my body waking me up to discuss the wisdom of swimming, I give thanks for delightful dreams that whales were swimming just off the shore here... And even more for then reading on Facebook humpbacks have actually been seen in a bay down the coast a way. Check out Cornwall Wildlife Trust's page or this article about when they were here a few days ago...

http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Rare-humpback-whale-sighting-yards-Cornish-coast/story-28461162-detail/story.html

I give thanks for the seascape here being pretty today despite no whales nor waves...

I give thanks for Mima suggesting we meet up for a catch up as not only was one most welcome and due, but I had to go into town and still creaking and aching from yesterday so a sit down mid shop was necessary too. I give thanks to Nick, two different Julies and Claire for limbering up my conversational skills on the way, and for leaving a lingering chuckle in a dentist's reception room...

I give thanks for going to our Wetherspoon's for the first time and conceding it really is a rather nice, spacious space and very civilised. You can get a cuppa for 99p and even a cream tea or toasted teacake so clearly they must have heard when I said it wouldn't have anything for me!

I give thanks for a twinkling pilot ship and cargo coaster in the twilight luring me down the back beach to watch them dock when I felt I could go no further. I give thanks for my sofa now I really know I can't! I give thanks to Gary for a fine idea for something I could do for someone else, and to me for bringing a bunch of deliciously fragrant narcissi home for me!

Just say yes!

I've a gentleman friend who assures me life seems much clearer half way down the second pint. Well, I wouldn't know as mine gets quite fuzzy after only a wineglass full of beer,  but forget fermentation, distillation, pills, powders and burning of herbage...one of the best feelings I have ever experienced is the one from a good acupuncture treatment! The bits you want clearer are crisp as can be, and the ones that seem normally too sharp and pointy become soft edged and gentle instead. I give thanks for what might have been very miserable events in my life leading to this happy discovery...and for making a good friend of an acupuncturist as well of course! I give thanks for a very jolly evening visit from Rachel, and a very jolly rest of the day home alone grinning to myself for no obviously discernable reason.

I give thanks for waking at what I thought must be early dawn but which turned out to be just the brightest crescent moon beaming in my window with Venus and stars twinkling around. It was such a stunning sight I downloaded a star map on my phone to understand it better...watched it disappear with the dawn... and then went back to sleep. I sometimes give thanks for a lonesome life with no need to negotiate bizarre behaviours...

I give thanks for spending second morning chasing up some excellent bargains for a trip up Norther than I've been for a very long while. And then for Ruth, whom I'd met only very briefly once before taking me swimming in a quiet warm pool with lots of glass so almost as good as outside, plus added water jets! Swimming, even in the lame way I do it these days is another of my favourite feelings in the world, especially that tingly but languid sensation afterwards, so after acupuncture and swimming within twenty four hours my body may appear to be lying on the sofa but actually it's dancing on the ceiling...and it may not be even my ceiling, ha ha!

I give thanks for left over risotto from last night for my tea - absolutely delicious despite coming from a packet (but then it was an Italian packet!) And I give thanks for someone else's cooking in the building causing the fire alarm to go off and a spot of good natured bonding among the residents sorting it out.

Ancient wisdom

I give thanks for remembering you can also meditate when you're in bed and not asleep. I give thanks for rewintering my bed so maybe there'll be less awake now it's turned nippy again. I give thanks I hadn't taken my old calendar down so I could refer to it when a bunch of relevant information seemed to have gone astray within the overburdened and sometimes under organised NHS. I give thanks for almost coming up for a plan for a jaunt with Jan later this year though the logistics are proving rather illogical!

And after a busy day with many domestic and admin chores for reminding myself it's neither illegal nor immoral to pause with a cup of Earl Grey and a book in the late afternoon...even a novel! I came across a paperback reprint of a P. D. James in a charity shop the other day so old some of the patients at the psychiatric clinic are being treated with lysergic acid. Classic!

I give thanks for coming across (again) that list I made of memories to savour on a solitary trip to Northern Spain however many years ago... Somewhere between 10 and 15 anyways...

A new day with sea all around

Watching for the dolphins

If you don't start something it never comes to an end

Siamese cat with aqua eyes under the car in the station

It's a good age to be travelling. Young enough still to be

That's where it stops... and no, I can't remember what I thought I was still young enough for! Hope I'm not too old for it yet...

To taste

I give thanks (again) for hearing the wind and rain through my open window in the night...for waking up cold and being able to reach for a warm blanket. Yeah, I know...but better a blanket than nothing!

I give thanks for a just right cup of tea this morning - such a perfect combination of temperature, strength and amount of milk it was memorably worthy of mention. Actually it was technically this afternoon and I give thanks for not beating myself up about that. A sunny Sunday can be the hardest day to get out of bed sometimes...not because I don't have all the normal sunny Sunday urges but because even the things I'm usually happy to do on my own seem lonelier somehow because everywhere is more crowded with people doing them not on their own...

So I have to give thanks for the noisy neighbour's radio forcing my feet so to speak, and for less aches and pains than of late to make it less of a trial. I give thanks for my camera because there's always something to see to try and capture and share in the virtual world even if there's no one to say 'Hey look!' to in the real one, and it gives you a purpose for being there apart from being the person people in couples or groups can be glad they're not!

I had not realised quite what a photogenic afternoon it was...though I should probably have realised when I was transfixed by the sunshine on a mossy wall top before I'd even left the end of the terrace...

I give thanks that it was so photogenic...and mild...and still enough to hold a camera still...that despite it actually being busier on the seafront than I've ever known it on a winter's day, apart from the Boxing Day dip, there were almost as many people holding cameras as hands. Also for a bit of bonding with another lone woman turning up at the same spots for the same shots at the same time as me...I love it when people with real cameras treat me as if I'm a real photographer as well! I give thanks for glorious changing light, the crashing waves and their lacy aftermath, and more surfers than I think I've ever seen here all at once enjoying pretty good conditions for their pleasure too.

I give thanks for a £1 bun catching my eye in the supermarket on the way home, wandering off to buy something else and coming back to see it reduced to 19p. Tasted even better I'm sure!

Off days off

I give thanks for the film the Sapphires which I saw a trailer for when it came out but only got round to watching after I recorded it on TV the other night...lots of feel good music and themes.

I give thanks for a good long sleep and lots of adventures in my dreams...looking round a new house again for one. This one was on the water's edge and had a crumbling top storey so probably best not analysed too much! 

I give thanks for the metallic bright of the sun on the sea through the trees this morning...

I give thanks for doing what I promised myself I'd do ie. having a day off! You may well think as I'm not working every day is a day off...but, I can assure you, being long term ill is much harder work than you can possibly imagine (well, certainly much harder than I could imagine anyway!) It probably would be easier if I didn't suffer from 'day off disease' which I caught when I was employed for a few years than self employed. This makes you feel you ought to be able to list to your colleagues what you did on your day off - whether pleasurable or productive or both...sporting pursuits, domestic god and goddesshood, home improvement endeavours... even episodes of rest and recreation should be epic - huge quantities of alcohol consumed, multiple hours spent in bed and/or seasons of TV programmes goggled at. 

I was excellent at impressive and satisfying day off lists when I was well and energetic, but now every day is an off day rather than a day off it would make life a little easier if I could remember there's no one to ask and nothing to impress any more. When I can remember this without feeling sad and without any motivation at all that will be truly impressive. In the meantime I'm grateful for committing myself to trying to be grateful...and telling people whether they ask or not!

Year in, year out

Yay! I give thanks for something to celebrate yesterday evening - that my aches and pains eased off so that I could flit from one side of the building to the other to see the fireworks going off. And for the wind being still so I could have the window open and hear the crowds in town counting down to midnight...and other parties near by on slightly different clocks!

I know it's arbitrary where one year begins and ends, but I give thanks for the twelve months we called 2015 being over. Apart from a few random handfuls of exquisitely happy hours, for which I'm extremely grateful of course, it was a period of much despondency, even desolation... I give thanks for trying always to be compassionate and kind, including towards myself regarding my own foolishness and failures, and for all I came to understand better through its challenges.

So, back in the nearer now...I give thanks for some delayed gifts from Bob. Christmas wasn't particularly Christmassy this year but it's certainly been long! I give thanks to Tamsin for a link to some of the most stunning images I've ever seen. I've not looked at them all yet, and as there's 100 I looking at one or two very carefully each week seems a nice idea, instead of just glancing and moving quickly on...
http://brightside.me/article/100-best-photographs-without-photoshop-46555/?

I give thanks for a delicious long lunch at Jenny's today, enjoying her wonderful view in between the torrential rain...and then coming home to enjoy a documentary about Roy Orbison in between the wind howling. Of course I'm far too young to be a Roy Orbison fan...but people have been pointing that out since I was about five years old!