Home birds

I give thanks for sleeping through some of the night despite various hindrances...for waking and keeping my eyes tight shut through a succession of gull squawks, pigeon coos and crow caws before giving up and shutting the window...and thus getting to see the sun come up through the tree tops!

I give thanks for making gluten free crackers to go with the cheese accompaniment for Rachel's bowl of (also homemade) lentil and roasted veg soup...I'm more frogess than goddess but I can be domestic now and then! I give thanks that Rachel is coming to treat me as well as eat...when you're feeling rough and the world seems tough what could be nicer than knowing someone's going to try and make you feel better?

I give thanks for writing the above earlier and then plodding off down the stairs to public spiritedly do some more bin sorting while I waited for Jenny to give me a lift to knitting...and when I came back a couple of hours later for discovering someone had finished the job in my absence! 

I give thanks for catching up with people I'd not seen for a while and finishing off my chicken style pieces...

I give thanks for rediscovering my mojo too somewhere along the deserted Monday seafront. It had wandered off suddenly and utterly for twenty four hours causing the kind of anguish only hypochondriacs and people who have serious stuff the matter with them can possibly understand. I give thanks it came back in time to produce the kind of quipping and banter expected of me in local shops and businesses. I give thanks I live in such a friendly part of the world where quipping and banter are required...

And carry on...

Sometimes you really don't appreciate what you have til it's gone. I'm often like that with painlessness - I just carry on doing lots of stuff quite forgetting what a blessing it is not to be hurting. And then when the hurting comes back it's hard to deal with the shock and disappointment as well as the actual pain. I give thanks in retrospect for a nice gentle patch without soreness when I sorely overdid the use of various body parts.

I give thanks to Bob for downloading his latest promo mix. Great music to dance to...see above. I give thanks for clearing up as much of the locally mismanaged rubbish as I could manage to..ditto.

I give thanks for sharing mirth and merriment with the Eastcliff Cafe staff at my ineptitude and decrepitude and self deprecation...and for finding a spot out of the wind and in the sunshine to enjoy a cup of take way tea, the sparkly waves and scudding clouds in the sky... For remembering to be grateful just for being there, not wishing I could go further or had someone to be with...

I give thanks for stopping to let a happy young couple pass me on the narrow pavement up the hill...and for seeing the glitter slippered girl whisper something in the boy's ear which led him to lift her up and carry her a few yards to their car. For allowing myself a twinge of envy...well, let's be honest two - one for the romance and one for the being carried!

I give thanks for finding a poem on the side of a packet of rice cakes. Is this normal? I've never seen one before...

I give thanks for a full contingent of noisy neighbours so that I can do a whole bunch of suffering at once this evening...

Shhh....

Oh bliss! I asked the universe for no audible arguments in the vicinity and it did so much better than that - there were no audible neighbours at home at all! Even the ones who almost always seem to be around and to be heard were away right through the night and most of the day and this bit of the terrace was so quiet it did cross my mind maybe it had been condemned or something and my letter telling me to get out was lost in the post... You cannot begin to imagine how grateful it made me...if you live in a house...especially one that's detached! Of all the horrid things about being poor never having any aural privacy is the one that makes me most sad and stressed, so I was giving thanks over and over again every time my ears reminded my heart to do so...

I give thanks for bed with no earplugs, and the window open to hear the swirling wind and crashing sea... For sensibly abandoning wallowing in the peacefulness this morning and getting up and out in time to catch the Post Office and the chemist that shuts early on Saturdays. For bright cloudiness and waves that make you go 'ooh!'...

I give thanks for some very pretty new earrings made for me...and for nearly knitting a chicken! I give thanks for nearly making a crumble but burning the rhubarb instead. I give thanks for one of the advantages of cooking for one - nobody to disappoint or make you feel disappointing...

I give thanks for this diverting little personality test quiz 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/taster/projects/who-would-play-you-in-a-movie. 
Apparently I'm good at planning and also thinking on my feet when things don't go according to...I'm thinking I'll take the weight off my feet and work out what to have for supper as it's not crumble...

Phone company

Brr...that's a cold looking sea it's been today! Much as I love it, I give thanks there's been no call to do my French lieutenant's woman impression....

Instead I give thanks for applying my mardy self to various chores and creative projects before deciding a late lunch and a spot of recorded TV might, if not actually cheer me up, at least distract me from my gloominess...and thus discovering my Sky TV wasn't working which was indeed a great distraction I can tell you!

Most of my appliances (like their owner) are ancient and battle scarred but can be coaxed into performing more than adequately through faith, hope and cheerful drudgery...however there was an error message I'd not seen before and none of my usual tricks and dodges helped and I had to do that thing I hate to do because it triggers all kinds of latent bigotry, and call the helpline. I'm one of those folk who always believe they can fix everything so I give thanks the problem defeated the advisor too...and for negotiating a deal for an engineer's visit, answering the call closure question about anything else he could do by saying 'Tell me how to cancel the appointment if I need to because I still think I can do it myself!'

As it's a couple of weeks away, I was mentally giving thanks for DVDs, internet TV and a trip away during that time whilst digging out an ancient Freeview box, scart lead and so on...when I had an urge to try plugging the Sky box in just one more time...and it worked again. Woohoo! See...I can fix (almost) everything!

I give thanks that Bob found the old phones he left out to bring but thought he'd left behind, so I've managed to fill another envelope to send off to Kidney Research...I give thanks to the friends who've used their working ones to say hello today...

I give thanks for snug earplugs to block out eruptions of a long rumbling nearby row last night...for warm bathwater to soothe me, a firm mattress to support me, a downy duvet to give me a hug and a valiant attempt at meditation to let go of the hard dark thoughts that lie on the other side of my thankfulness...and I wouldn't mind more of the same tonight but I'd prefer not the first part, if possible universe please?

Love and pieces

I give thanks for more nurturing in the form of a sausage sarnie made for me, the fridge light fixed and also the loo seat which means members of the male sex can now proceed without fear of being cut short!

I give thanks for fitting in more of our favourite seasonal traditions like a movie with explosions, car chases etc and quiet companionable jigsaw completion... I give thanks that due to the season being somewhat delayed I got to see Bob off in daylight this time, which feels nicer somehow, not least because I don't have to come home alone in the dark. I don't mind being alone really, and I'm very good at not being nurtured but it's always hardest when I haven't had to be for a while...

I give thanks for all the seagull romance going on on the rooftops...no, I don't really want any more seagulls around but they're clearly feeling loved up and I can't begrudge them the feeling any more than the mature in years but young at heart couple who decided to skip hand in hand down the hill as I came up...I give thanks for their exuberant joy.

I give thanks for my jaunt with Jan to look forward to as I'm feeling a bit flat now I'm home in my flat listening to the neighbours having company instead of them having to listen to me.

Winter spring fall

I give thanks for the unbroken sunshine forecast not breaking through the clouds until we were ready to go out in it...for the springlike warmth when sheltered from the wintry northern breeze.

I give thanks for a stroll to see where I'd heard a cliff not far away had collapsed a little, not realising a spring had sprung forth into a bit of a misty waterfall which looked great in the bright sunlight but was damn tricksy to photograph as it glared right down the lens and dazzled the eyes too much to do much fiddling with settings.

I give thanks for my utterly brilliant Christmas/birthday presents...I supplied a list of course but I didn't expect to get so much that was on it! I give thanks for some of my favourite Gorilla perfume to make me even more irresistible (no, it doesn't mean it smells of gorillas but it does mean it doesn't smell like the yukky ones mask-thick make up wearing ladies sell in department stores!), for a new capo for my guitar to write sad songs if I'm still resistible enough...and for delicious Thornton's chocolate caramels,  a paperback and a bath bomb if I'm resistible and both my heart and hands are sore at once...

I give thanks for a go on my laptop - sometimes you have to share (sigh!), and for friends to chat with on Facebook. I give thanks that Bob is going to make dinner in a bit and I can chat to friends on Facebook while he does...pay attention friends...remember to chat to me in a little while so I can fully feel the not being a fully responsible adult experience!

Sub text

I'm grateful for some neighbours having a shouty row and waking me up from a late afternoon power nap before it became an early night...it's been a busy week or two and a little battery charge was necessary after whizzing into the big city today for a hospital appointment, but not a full on shut down.

I give thanks for lovely weather - bright but not too crisp. And for Bob's company on the train because although I'm grateful for perpetuating the myth that I'm as casual as can be about medical matters, I care more about outcomes than a would be Buddhist should! I give thanks for outcomes that were pretty OK...no action required in the areas I would prefer no action to be necessary, action pending for areas I'd like some please and a little light banter with one of my favourite consultants to banter with as he understands he's supposed to be consulting me...

I give thanks also for Bob's phone being able to take a photo of the message my phone composed by itself in my pocket... It clearly has some issue with something and is rather more confrontational than I am so I'm grateful it didn't send it though I'm fascinated by what the next word might have been!

I give thanks for a tired and increasingly disheartened trawl around the various eateries in the centre looking for somewhere with something we wanted to buy and somewhere we wanted to be...the two most promising were full (well they would be!) but in the second of these they were persuaded to find us a corner and fed us some most delectable anti pasti with good humour, excellent service and reasonable prices. We'd nearly finished before we worked out why it was called Jamie's!

I give thanks that Bob found something he was looking for in one of the many charity shops he looked in and for a restorative mug of station cafe brew before slogging back up the hill for that nap! I give thanks we've still not got round to Christmas...always good to have something to look forward to.

Westward ho ho ho!

My laptop is still convinced I've moved to Westward Ho! and whether the location settings are on or off continues to tell Facebook that's where I am every time I cease to be diligent. I give thanks for the opportunity to assure readers I'm just where you think I ought to be...especially those who might be nervously looking over their neoprened shoulders when they are in Westward Ho!

I give thanks for skipping through a documentary I didn't find as interesting as I thought it might be...and right at the end seeing in shot someone I used to know a little a long time ago. I wouldn't have thought I remembered her face that well, might even have stumbled over her name...but as soon as I saw her I said it...and then of course looked her up to 'prove' it to myself...

I give thanks for a night of far too much dreaming and waking up reminding me to grateful for several preceding ones of deep and undisturbed sleep. How easy it is to appreciate in retrospect what we seemed to have when it seems to be gone...even though nothing really comes and goes except our thoughts and perceptions...

I give thanks the council has decided to group all the big recycling skips in one car park...and that it is Eastcliff! Always happy to see more sea in the guise of planet saving... I give thanks for the baby waves out from the point...

Right...I'd better go and finish wrapping Christmas presents although I had some more birthday things yesterday and I've not opened those yet...one is a mite confused...

It's not the vanilla...

I give thanks for this interesting and well written 'point of view' about happiness and vanilla...and I give thanks for a day with some of what it talks about!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35605568

I give thanks for mild and bright springlike weather, with just enough light spatterings of rain here and there to make faint rainbows...ideal for the beautiful views on a drive out to Seale Hayne and back with Laura and Mima for my delayed birthday meal. I give thanks for unexpected detours which meant we got to see lots of hedgerow snowdrops and very cuddly looking alpaca along a narrow windy muddy lane with a road closed sign - at the end we came out of or we probably wouldn't have done...

I give thanks for stroking the cutest friendliest goats and viewing some pigs that I'm sure had wonderful personalities and souls but really were not noticeably cute at all!

I give thanks for lots of delicious food...too much of the main dishes for any of us to finish so no chance of dessert, not even a cup of tea or coffee. When have you ever heard of me being too full for a cup of tea? Yep, that full! I give thanks I managed to try a taste of the chocolate I found in one of the shops there though. It was a new make of chocolate to me, and a new flavour...no, not vanilla...simnel cake! 

I give thanks for learning to drink out of my new water bottle without the unwelcome sound effects...oh and for these pretty little crocuses reaching up to the sun...

It's not what you do...

...well sometimes it is...but sometime's it's not! I give thanks for spending some time in bed this morning thinking about all the things I didn't have to do, and for making sure in between doing the ones I did have to, there were plenty of those! There's a kind of driven I'm always happy for more of ie. riding in cars (esp with boys) and a kind I'd be happy with less of ie. feeling I should try harder, do more... and more quickly too! I give thanks for a little planning with Gary for a little more of the former...

I give thanks for the lovely howly swooshy wind. For a daylight lamp for a spot of stitchery on a daydark afternoon... I give thanks for Soula's delushious hummus!

I give thanks for catching up with some recorded TV including an absolutely fascinating look at the ins and outs of product development, customer care, merchandising etc at 'one of the UK's biggest sex toy retailers'...

I give thanks for unexpected acts of kindness...and for the kindness of sharing them instead of scaremongering, gloom and bad news...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-35610937

http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2016/02/15/british-problems-all-british-people-feel/
I gave thanks for reading this earlier in the week on Facebook but for those who don't know me there, including my small but not forgotten overseas readership, you might enjoy sharing in the groans of embarrassed recognition..

Driven to distraction

I give thanks for being taken to a nearby town where affluent alternatives go to acquire. I went with some ladies who love to acquire and foolishly asked them what they were planning to... forgetting that shopping for some is an intransitive verb and requires no direct object! I give thanks for getting into the spirit of the thing as far as I'm able and buying a second (at least) hand turquoise leather bag in the market plus delicacies like stuffed vine leaves and organic parmesan...and that there were plenty of cafes so that when I grew distracted by the endless examining of everything I could escape for refreshment of body and soul. I give thanks for being praised by Laura for 'doing very well' - she knows this aspect of femininity is not my forte.

I give thanks I'm not as cross as one of my neighbours is tonight, they are so cross everything is vibrating slightly... And I'm grateful though I'm fond of clean I'm not as obsessed with vacuuming either...that's the third time she's done that bit of floor in an hour... Maybe they don't have an ashtray?

I give thanks for hearing from someone I've been hoping would get in touch for a while (no, not the old school chum!) so, as Bob's now coming for Christmas next week, there's currently just one more thing I'd like the Universe to get its finger out over...I know patience is supposed to be a virtue but sometimes there's a limit on how virtuous I'd like to be!

Likewise

I give thanks that if I ever get round to producing that long threatened collection of short stories, I've long had a name prepared - it's to be called 'Otherwise'.

We are all multifaceted beings, all essentially the same - precious yet often poignantly undervalued. I've had a lifetime to learn I'm a strangely cut gem that might fit into many settings... but easily falls out, or is pushed! Today, with yesterday's exertions making me slow and reflective, I've been feeling the gratitude still for that strange sense of being with my own kind I had talking to other long term finders of lightness and lightheartdeness in the shadows. Despite all the kinds of 'own kind' I might find, from knee high onwards it's been rare I ever do...and often times time has revealed the feeling misplaced or misdirected...but, I don't know, maybe that makes me more aware of what a wonder it is to feel connected and close even if it's a fleeting thing. Maybe it makes me extra grateful?

I wrote that bit in my head in my bed earlier today...and then pottered around with various overdue tasks giving thanks for feeling the vague stirrings in my system of the EPO doing its job. The conventions of Western medical knowledge would suggest that this cannot be the case but I reckon unless a particular doctor (or a nurse for that matter!) is on particularly intimate terms with your specific body they cannot have more than a vague idea of how your brain perceives its processes...probably ;-)

And then later...
...I gave thanks for realising the old school and beyond chum I was so delighted to find finally arrived on Facebook a couple of days ago has not just not responded to my friend request and message but, as she's become friends with others since, and my request has vanished, has decided not to. Why do I give thanks? Oh I can stop looking forward to hearing back! I think I failed to be how she wanted me to be when I went to visit her fifteen years or so ago and she's not managed to move on from that...or has moved on according to how you look at it. She did very well for herself in life and lives with the kind of comfort and prestige to which I could easily become accustomed if I had but the manners! But I parted company from her with serious doubts about her contentment...and her response reminded me to give thanks for everyone who realises my prestige is otherwise from my content.

Anyway, enough of the puns and philosophising...I give thanks for the symphony of moving light and showers today particularly at sundown, making rainbows on tinted clouds and ruffling the surface of the sea...This is what it looked like in the other direction from the rainbow... Oh and PS to yesterday's post...I give thanks to Liz and Jo for telling me they were red kites!

Angel building

I give thanks today wasn't all about cancer which, given the purpose of the trip I had some misgivings might be the case. Subjects were touched on that dragged us into dreadful memories, but though we all listened nobody wallowed and the focus group retained its focus... I give thanks for meeting people who agreed that despite the loss of body parts and functionality, hopes, dreams, lifestyle, choices etc etc something indefinable and treasured has been gained.

I give thanks I'd already decided the best way to deal with that awful round of self introductions was to say my name and then add '...and I hate this bit!' as it turned out the room was full of coordinators of this and lead spokespersons for that... and it was astonishing and flattering that someone at CRUK thought my voice was worth a peak time train fare to join in. I give thanks for being welcomed and leaving feeling a good job had been done.

I give thanks for free WiFi on the railway...Great Western indeed! For not only not having to change platforms changing trains on the outward journey, but having time to get a cuppa and a joy of heaven to earth come down (otherwise known as an almond croissant) to fuel me for a much needed snooze in a quiet carriage before dealing with the demands of the big city. For a surprising number of buzzards near Reading (yes, I did look twice and no, they weren't planes) For successfully using a big red bus for the first time for many many years and the first time ever on my own, plus negotiating a mad 3 line tube dash back when the session turned out to be finishing later than I'd been told...oh, and for the stylish architectural details in the building which were functional too when you'd worked out how!

I give thanks my bumpkiness is almost back in the country now...

Plan a day

Despite a sore throat and a chilly night, I give thanks for sleeping soundly and waking up warm with the bright sun shining through my south facing windows. I give thanks for remembering plan A for today only really consisted of three things - to get everything ready for tomorrow, to kick into touch this little bug rattling round my system (as, interesting though it might be to go down with a cold and have something simple and comprehensible the matter with me, I really haven't the time)...and to rest.

I give thanks that most of the above went smoothly...for my feisty immune system plus Tiger Balm, hot honey, lemon and ginger, Potter's Vegetable Cough Remover and gargling with tea tree oil; for booking a cab to station, working out routes the other end, choosing every item of clothing, downloading something to watch on my tablet, sorting out my new water filter bottle and other items to go in a bag... sorting out a bag...

And I give thanks I think I finally got some new music on my Walkman...despite finding out that Windows 10 doesn't recognise Sony mp3 players and fails to transfer anything any way I know - sending, syncing, copying files - and remembering why my old laptop is my old laptop. It was so slow it almost wasn't doing anything at all, and the first few things I tried to improve the situation actually stopped it doing the few things it did...but after hours of tortuous reboots and upgrades and downloads I think we eventually got there, though I'm going to wait until tomorrow to see if I can actually play the tracks I seem to have added to the music files because if I haven't it'll be tomorrow already...and I've still not managed all of the rest of the to do list...including, of course, the rest!

Cardology

I give thanks for more communication in the last 48hrs or so than I usually have in many months of Sundays...most enjoyable! And as so much of it was virtual I give thanks I got to give my fingers a rest and go out for tea with Rachel yesterday. I give thanks the pub was not only not doing a special Valentine's menu, they were shutting less than an hour after we arrived, but there was still time to order some hearty veggie food and negotiate the muddy path to see the remnants of sunset light reflected in the canal before it was served.

I give thanks for a mug of tea back home and discovering Rachel had secreted about her person individual gluten free lemon drizzle cakes, candles and a lighter. I give thanks for her chivvying me to open my cards and gifts in minutes rather than my usual hours or days...and for astonishingly well chosen and/or made ones especially considering the people involved either haven't known me very long or don't know me well...or both! I have a thing about nice cards in particular and these were some of the nicest...one of them was even one I'd chosen for someone else last year. Yep...that nice!

I give thanks for braving the Post Office queue again today in hopes the cards I'd expected to receive on Saturday might be waiting. I know you should try not to have expectations but there were four people who usually send them I hadn't had one from, plus one from someone who'd never sent one before who'd led me to believe they might. So yeah...a little light hopefulness going on...

The staff know me well in there (and about the occasional mishaps in the sorting office) and the counter assistant stretched the elastic band and rummaged in the middle of the bundle to check there were birthday card looking envelopes as well as hospital and bank looking ones before handing them to me. I give thanks there was the green one, a pink and white stripy one, one with foreign stamps and one with very familiar writing (as are the folk who sent them no doubt! ) but hmmm...what about the one I could most reasonably 'expect' to receive? The one I'd tried to be reasonable about 'only' receiving and waiting for a present? Oh there it was...in that padded envelope with a packet of Nag Champa to stop my nagging!

I have all my cards, I'm happy now, thank you! No of course I haven't opened them yet...that won't happen for hours...if not days! In the meantime I need to find my tape measure...I've a dress hem needs sorting ;-)

Nicer than pie

I give thanks for sleeping well and waking up to a comfy clean home after a Saturday night at the hoover, duster and washing up. I give thanks for kind writings on my Facebook wall, some with images of cake and flowers which is nice as it's not been a cake and flowers sort of birthday this time. I did have some savoury pie last night which I'd been looking forward to but which turned out not to be one of Tesco's finest creations. I give thanks that it was only for two so I only have to eat it once more...and that it reminded me to treat myself to more of Higgedy's as they are the far the superior option.. .

I give thanks for a text from Rachel with good news about a change in the arrangements for later which made a pleasant change! The last few weeks it's often felt as if plans have been set in sand or soap the way they keep shifting or slipping away...

I give thanks for what seem like pretty ordinary everyday things to be grateful for like the neighbours not being too noisy and the pain and fatigue not being too bad...but these are things that can blight any day quite badly especially when they both happen at once so it's good when neither do...

I give thanks for little bits of light beautification (in my own eyes anyhow!) including refreshing the greeny blue streak in my hair which not only makes me feel a lot less jaded, but which allows some ladies I know to fulfil their dreams of age unexpected hair colour vicariously. Maybe the processes weren't so light and slight, as somehow just pottering about and trying to keep warm on this very nippy day it's time to get ready to get the train already and I've still not opened my cards and gifts...Actually, honestly, as those who know me well know well, although I want to receive them very much, opening things is something I always find time to delay...

Pink and red and grey and blue

I give thanks for the post lady's touching excitement handing me a solitary bright pink envelope among my everyday mail. I love that she thought it was what she thought it was...and that the sender thought to write its origins on the back so I didn't get any such dumb ass ideas! I give thanks for my touching faith that there are a couple of other envelopes with my name on them still on the way, held up by all the pink and red ones in the system this weekend perhaps... I don't know why people giving us bits of stiff coloured paper should make us feel good but somehow sometimes they do, and sometimes when they don't it doesn't too.

I give thanks for the library's blind date book shelf where you choose something red wrapped with a clue to the genre on the front. I give thanks I had two recommended and ordered ones to collect anyway...and that they were slim paperbacks not thick heavy to lug home tomes as I had feared.

I give thanks to Jenny for treating me to lunch at a table with a view of the waving sea and delivering a some little birthday whatnots from knitting chums, for a catch up and for a lift home - woohoo!

I give thanks for all the neighbours being out for a while, for a nap, for DVDs and recorded TV to watch, the jigsaw, the books (about games people play, and stigma for those who can't join in!) and lots of paper hankies - weekends are almost always grey days, and birthdays often make me inconsolably blue...

Good hearts

I'm still giving thanks for yesterday's public transport excursion - my heart badly needed a road trip even if the rest of my body has been complaining about it today. I give thanks for the thoughtfulness of folks who urge me not to over do things, to take it easy...but I take it very hard that my existence these days seems such an underdone thing. Sitting around not even twiddling my thumbs because my thumb joints are wrecked from years of stitchery feels like a half life (in all senses) that's hard to be grateful for so I give thanks I find ways to still feel a little bit me now and then...and if it wears me out well it just makes another day not thumb twiddling not seem so sad...

I give thank for sleeping fitfully through a long running argument in a nearby flat, then going to bed and sleeping very well despite that pesky fire alarm warning us of no fire whatsoever. I give thanks for very nice dreams...

I give thanks for looking at my horoscope when I finally emerged at lunchtime, reading something that has been doing my head in was about to be resolved...then logging into Facebook and finding a message proving this to be true! I give thanks it was from someone who would agree that horoscopes are pretty silly and thus extra cool when it appears that they're not...

Oh, the picture was something I spotted on my travels yesterday - I give thanks that I did! And this is for all of you who're still thinking of Feargal Sharkey... I bumped into him once in the Marquee Club in London. No literally...I turned round quickly and nearly fell over the poor chap!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlh_JJihv4g

Net worth

I give thanks for having someone to talk to when I got into bed last night...and someone else on the bus today...not that they were actually there in person you understand but in spirit a little, courtesy of the miracle of the ether. I give thanks that I was on a bus or two today, as I still feel as if I've been run over by one, but ever since I was old enough to wander off on my own the sight of a bright blue sky when the tree branches are still bare has made it very hard not to! I give thanks for scenic journeys and brief halts at places that make me very glad I am but passing through...

I give thanks for headphones to protect my ears from piercing young female voices...if only I'd brought something similar to protect my nostrils from pongy old men's coats!

I give thanks for having a real live person to talk to over toasted tea cake and pots of tea when I finally returned and waited for my delivery to come in at the chemist. I give thanks that there was something with my address on waiting at the Post Office to prove that I was me when they did...but it wasn't until Mima gave me a birthday card that I realised there weren't any others in the mail. Oh well, plenty of time folks...I'm still waiting for half of Christmas you know!

I give thanks I have medication on the premises that may stop me feeling like a woman with altitude even when I'm flat calm by the sea...in the meantime I give thanks that Mrs Co op is making my tea, Mr Tesco has done some dessert and I've done with trying to be awesome on my ownsome for a day or two...

Beaded theory

Another day, another holler...well more of a whimper really. I give thanks for lots of physical pain as it makes it seem more reasonable to be miserable and grumpy...and for my heated mattress thingy to switch on when it wakes me up in the night.

The source of all suffering, of course, is wanting any situation to be in any way different from what it it is...And as I'm suffering from wanting several situations to be different at the moment, I'm grateful I know there's no point wishing that to be different either...

I give thanks for trying to steer a path between doing nothing - which hurts the body a bit less but which gives the head more chance to dredge up the things it's sore about - and occupying myself with stuff that swings the balance the other way. I give thanks for embracing pointless with a not new but new to me Colin Thompson jigsaw. They are so good you've only got to Google colin tho and it takes you there! I haven't done so myself for a while and can see there are loads I've yet to enjoy...

I give thanks for attaching some of that lace to what will become the end of a sleeve on the dress I got from ebay not realising an Italian small is a good bit larger than I am. You can see why I had to go back to get the trimming...and as for the necklace, well they could have been made for each other...oh wait, they were!

I give thanks for remembering to make myself tea in a pot with a cosy and a little milk jug on a tray, so I can ask myself if I'd like a drop more and top up my mug in a way that makes me feel almost pampered. Do to yourself as you would have others...

Treat meant

I give thanks to Rachel for asking me what I'd most like to happen on my birthday...and for commiserating when I told her! And then, when I got a bit more real and said I'd be happy just to not to have to eat tea at home alone, suggesting we meet up after she finished her course in the little city that day and grab some grub in a pub. The little city does have some most excellent pubs where I've had some most excellent times and I give thanks for a brief exchange with an old chum on Facebook today remembering some of those. I can even think of one just outside where if couples have gone to nibble each other as well as the food they'd be quite cool and funky people anyway...

My treatment yesterday left me feeling somewhat anaesthetised, which is not altogether a bad thing, but add in the anaemia and I'm moving so imperceptibly I'm not sure I'm moving at all...so I was grateful I had a dentist appointment this morning and could turn up somewhere else and tell I had. 

I give thanks for fresh out of the oven ginger cake and a mug of tea at our local station cafe for the princely sum of £2.40 (none of that pumpkin nonsense here!) and for a long slow scenic train journey past a solitary almost stationary paddle boarder on the long slow waves and the far out (man) tide exposing the bones of boats in the estuary. I give thanks some lace clocked a couple of weeks ago and now desired for a dress transformation project was still in the shop!

I give thanks for music on my headphones keeping me awake...and for some suggestions for some new tunes to try. For leftover things for tea that require merely lifting to the mouth and eating. For a new necklace collaboratively designed with Jan that I meant to buy but which she gave me as a gift to say thank you for my bargain travel hunting. It would go most delightfully with the transformed dress. All I've got to do is finish transforming it...and then maybe find a pumpkin!

Mind your language

So how was it for you? Did the earth move...was there wave upon wave of wonderfulness? Bit limp here I thought but then I'm comparing it to the pounding we had a couple of years ago, when for once I was actually frightened. Mind you I kinda like being a bit scared sometimes...as long as I'm really quite safe of course!

I give thanks for being awake in the night anyway just in case...still wrestling with the birthday conundrum. I give thanks to Jenny for offering to join me for a cup of tea and a look at the sea 'if I don't get a better offer'. I give thanks I know I'm not going to get any such thing, and it's a very kind offer as indeed those are things I like to do, but of course that's why I indulge in them as often as I can and although I've had a lot of birthdays I've still not grown out of wanting to do something a bit different and special when they come along. I give thanks thanks I did come up with one cunning plan a few weeks ago but it involved other people and the other people were all involved in other things... Oh well, I'm sure I'll give thanks for another fine lesson in acceptance when the day comes round don't you?

I give thanks that yesterday's resting prepared me for today's DIY demands which involved a bit of screwing. For obvious reasons I've not done a lot of this in recent times, and was part way through the task when I remembered in even more recent ones, through lack of a man (or woman) to assist, I did purchase a very lightweight cordless drill for desperate moments (I hate things that buzz in my hand!) Lack of use had left that a bit feeble too and rather than hang around on a ladder waiting for it to charge I give thanks I managed to get my fingers to do the working instead. I give thanks you don't need a wetsuit and board to access dodgy terminology...

I give thanks for not being too sharp with anyone about epipens...maybe a little blunt perhaps, but there's a fine line between the two. I give thanks for creating a tasty gluten free pasta tea plus a little light cleaning and tidying up....oh and writing a blog post of course.

I give thanks I'm capable of multiple awesomeness. Put your hands together for the wonder that is me. It has to be you - I can't lift my arms after all that ;-)

Decent proposals

I give thanks for the pretty sunshine and cloud formations this morning. No, it didn't 'lift my mood' as people sometimes suggest bright weather might...going out in (any) weather is what I like, not feeling too feeble to.

So I give thanks to Laura for inviting me to go out for a walk and, on hearing I was too stiff and sore from being too awesome this week, for offering to pick me up and take me to Waitrose instead. I know, going in a vehicle to a shop and back...surprised it wasn't on the local news! I give thanks for closing time bargains and sitting in the point car park a while watching the sheltering ships in the bay disappearing as the rain closed in.

I give thanks for the best public marriage proposal I've ever seen on Rudetube last night (it was a magician and he did it in tricks) and for Laura's daughter phoning with news of hers today as we trundled through the aisles (hidden ring and walk on the beach with metal detector) I give thanks this thing called love really does happen to some people sometimes...

Strings attached

I give thanks for a heart warming day spending quality time with loved ones. Oops, my mistake, wrong version of reality! I give thanks for spending ordinary time with someone I like quite a lot (i.e. me) resting and looking after myself (i.e. not resting). I give thanks for stay at home stormy weather and a bit of a virtual chat with Jan.

I give thanks for attaching my new stringy door curtain without too much difficulty. I hadn't realised it needed a pole or wire threading through the top...and was wondering what I could use until I rummaged in the DIY stuff and found a length of curtain wire ready cut and with hooks on obviously used for some other doorway some other time. I give thanks for managing to get some panel pins in the frame firmly enough to hold it - my right hand is averagely clumsy with a hammer but my left hand is comical with nails so I spend as much time going back down the steps to retrieve them from the floor as actually banging them in! Not a lot to see I'm afraid - but then that IS the point!

I give thanks for round 3 of the extension lead challenge. I took the easy way on the last one and bought a more expensive one locally instead of travelling somewhere else to save a few quid. I give thanks I live somewhere I can buy extension leads - even fancy pants switchy ones! Today however there was no escape from the moving of furniture to get to the socket that needed a new extension lead plugging into it - a large piece of largely solid wood furniture. I now feel like my puppet self and in need of someone else to move my arms and legs...but also a little smug with it... I am stronger than I seem to be...thank goodness!

I give thanks for Nag Champa rose incense cones...I'd forgotten I'd a few of those left. I must fill up my panniers next time I go to the market in the north of the county. Also for watching the deliciously filmed Perfume again. Some people think it's too dark a tale to enjoy but for some mysterious reason I find stories about misfits and outcasts often easier on the heart strings than those with the so called feel good factor. 

I'm mobile

I give thanks for the wonder of making it through another day of low energy, limp limbs and limited vehicular access. I give thanks for starting with as long a lie in as I had time for, exercising my magnificent logistical skills to work out a route through the town with minimal carrying of a to b, backtracking if an item were out of stock in my first choice of store, or hanging around anywhere with anything melting in my bag...

I give thanks for having the cost of cab fares, and for cutting out an intended attendance at a meeting for those suffering from chronic illness as due to my eligibility each step had to be accounted for today... and I had to make up for those squandered going back up the five flights to my flat, and down again, after I forgot my mobile. It's often a pretty pointless accessory for me and could quite easily be left behind, but I'd arranged to arrange meeting Mima with it so I could give her an empty jar to fill with fresh made marmalade and I was too grateful for that offer to squander it instead!

I give thanks for the man on the Post Office counter being understanding when I shook my head at the size of the parcel he wanted to give me and said I'd need to go and get a bag of groceries from the Co op first. And I give thanks for, just on the off chance, abandoning the great tailback in the Co op and trying the other end of the shop where a solitary cashier stopped twiddling her thumbs and explained she kept going to ask if people wanted to come to her till but they looked at her as if she was 'speaking a foreign language...'

I give thanks for using my best language on the anaemia team's answer machine...no sharpness, just a gentle query as to why the medical supply company refused to supply the meds on my prescription due to 'a query with the hospital'. I give thanks they didn't call back because I fell asleep beside the phone...

Added value

I'm grateful for a bit less physical pain today...always a bonus. I'm grateful for mild sunshine so that a long wait for a late bus was quite pleasant...apart from having to wait by the road of course...

I'm grateful for a long cloud hanging over the tors. For a busker so good I wanted to marry him...
For schoolboys recognising a Porsche Carrera and bowing to the driver waiting for them to cross the road. He appeared to be quite unmoved, the grumpy old so and so...goes to show money isn't everything. 
For spotting that you can buy Valentine's cards for several named varieties of loved recipient...and also 'value' ones for those you value a bit less I guess...

I'm grateful for getting home at not quite dusk so that when I put the hall light on and the bulb blew and took the circuit with it there was enough daylight left to see to replace the fiddly fuse wire.

I'm grateful the common consensus of opinion is that I should be back on performance enhancing drugs...even I agree ...and live in hope that at some point in the not too distant future communication between the hospital and the company that supplies same will be enhanced to a level at which I am able to get my little hands on an epipen or two...before I'm just too damn exhausted to care...

Turning points

I give thanks for turning my mattress...or perhaps to be more accurate I should say I give thanks my mattress is turned! Coming up to mattress turning time I'm always racking my brains for a way a spare pair of hands might be inveigled to help, but always end up thinking 'Oh for goodness sake woman it would be easier to do it yourself!' and always manage somehow... eventually...with one and a half hands and much cursing and huffing and puffing!

I give thanks for my new heated mattress protector picked up in a sale recently and now finally installed. It's been a mild winter so far and you might think a hammock to sling between the trees in the communal gardens might have been a better investment but I thought the warmth might be soothing when my joints are sore and so far it seems to be so. I've yet to complete the extension lead challenge so that I can have both heat and light simultaneously but home wasn't built in a day eh?

I give thanks the mop up bin collection team have at last emptied our misused recycling bins and even removed some of the side waste, which of course they're not obliged to do as side waste isn't supposed to exist. I give thanks for being able to use them for their intended purpose today...and for not having to look at so much literal garbage.

Today was the last day I could realistically expect to hear some good news about something. It's been a long hard time not coming this news and I give thanks for people's tolerance of my intolerance of the uncertainty. Also for the remarkable human capacity to ignore warnings and signs and carry on down roads of delusion towards mirages... until we're finally ready to crash and burn in the desert I guess. While I was spinning through the air waiting to hit the sand I was grateful to hear about some other hopeful anticipation being misplaced and premature...because if you're going to have to look at metaphorical garbage you might as well have a whole heap of it at once I suppose.

I give thanks for more opportunities to practice acceptance of what isn't meant to be, to let go of expectations and preferences of outcomes and to face unpalatable truths with equanimity...and if you fully believe that you're kidding yourself as much as I have been...

In validity

In a week when I've heard of one friend's new sports car, and another's new dog, and another's booking of a month long trip around the world I'm extra aware, whatever I've got to be grateful for, yours is is bigger and better, more beautiful and more bounteous, and probably came with a hug and a kiss and a red ribbon round it too! So the first thing I guess is to say I'm very grateful for that - I give thanks for your healthiness and happiness, for your good times and good things to come. 

So what else? Well, I have to give thanks for Rachel of course. She has a big family and a business to run, studies, hobbies, a husband, lots of friends, and patients as well, and yet still finds a couple of hours most weeks to come over and give me a treatment and the treat of feeling validity. Amazing...and last night she made me some delicious food as well!

And I give thanks for the other folk who've helped me feel a fully paid up (even if part time) member of the human race today. I give thanks for meeting Christine coming up the hill as I was hobbling still so achy down it, thinking to myself 'I haven't met Christine on the hill for ages...' I give thanks for her thinking of somewhere she thinks I'd like to go if someone offered to take me out in a car again...I don't think she realises how rare this actually is, but she knows the kind of things that make me go 'Ooh!' and 'Aah!' so I'll store it in my memory bank just in case...

I give thanks to Linda for inviting me for tea and sarnies for lunch, to Jenny for giving me a beautiful deep crimson hyacinth after remembering they are my favourite kind, and Nick the taxi driver and I experiencing exactly the same reaction to a song from our childhood on the radio.

I give thanks to my new neighbour Charlotte waving at me as I got out of the cab, apologising for the noise and inviting me in to show me the demolished stud walls (told you!)

I give thanks for my bed inviting me in for a nap when I got indoors...and also for just looking at the time, wondering what I can be bothered to make for tea and remembering I have a slice of spinach and feta pie from the Greek deli which is open again after their winter break.

Banging on

I'm grateful I was in too much pain to go out today..and that I didn't have to.

I'm grateful although I was in too much pain to go out yesterday really I still did, because sometimes moving around helps, and not feeling imprisoned always does...especially when a local dog is protractedly expressing its own misery about being stuck indoors with no company.

And I'm always grateful if I can get to the bit where I can see the vast sweep of the bay, which always makes me catch my breath, let out a sigh of relief...and sometimes almost cry with joy. I'm grateful whatever poor decisions have marred my life (including many of my own!) coming to live here was a damn fine one.

And I'm grateful the picture I posted inspired a kind comment from someone I don't know...and for this one which captured the watery colours so much better.

I'm grateful I have a new neighbour who seems pleasant, and that for the first time since I moved in I'm not the only owner occupier in the building which may spell progress in getting things sorted here. Of course it also means lots of crashing and banging, as they demolish stud walls in stupid places I should imagine, if my own home improvements are anything to go by. I'm grateful listening reminds me of all the hard work and optimism after I moved in...before the optimism itself became the struggle.

I'm grateful for sorting out the remains of Saturday's sorting out that have been strewn about the place since then and now are not. I'm grateful for clean and tidy.

And finally I'm grateful for thinking of gratitudes all over again because one of my flailing fingers hit something it shouldn't have just now and destroyed this post just as I was about to publish....