Gold

I give thanks for watching the sunset stripes yesterday evening turn from gold to crimson.

I give thanks for remembering that everyone has some gold in their heart...but that there are cases when you may need such specialised equipment and skills to mine for it it may be best just to take it as probably there!

I give thanks for events reminding me if people seem thoughtless or unkind they are probably nursing some wounds and worries of their own and the best you can do is try not to give hurt back...or pass it on...or absorb it and think that you deserve it in some way. If they fail to find and treasure your gold, well you can feel some sympathy for their lack of equipment and skills but you don't have to let them chip away at your soul for practice!

I give thanks that I don't drive as I would have been in too much pain to do so today and would probably have felt disenfranchised and undignified hobbling to the stop to get a bone rattling bus to the hospital...instead of grateful for not having to rely on fiendishly friendly and expensive volunteers. I give thanks for the beauty of the journey and the weather and my Walkman for providing an aural bubble to make public transport more of a transport of delight. 

I give thanks for an individual Higgedy pie in the oven, and a solitary soak in the bath coming up. I give thanks no humans will be harmed while I nurse my wounds and worries tonight.

Cramped quarters

I give thanks for a very hectic but very pleasant few days - with a little help from my friends I can have something really quite a lot like a life, and I do appreciate it when they appreciate I need that help and appreciate me enough to give it! Particular thanks for Daryl's delicious dinner last night and, the lack of sleep due to all the pain and cramp from walking. Pain from doing nice things is the best kind of pain I know! 

I give thanks for seeing something that looked a lot like an otter in the river in the early evening too. After some debate about what might look like an otter (not much we could think of) I looked it up and apparently there's evidence of them the whole length of it, so although it was an unlikely spot maybe it actually was.

I give thanks for getting home with exactly three quarters of an hour to do everything that had to be done before I went to partake in a delicious afternoon tea for Mima's birthday with Jenny...and for getting all those things done! I give thanks for a lift home from Jenny afterwards and taking about five minutes to do the next things that had to be done before falling fast asleep...

I give thanks for my cousin Adam's great pictures from  his current trip to the States. We're a family with an eye for eye pleasing scenes...and try not to let the giant water birds that follow us around put us off taking photos to share!

Darting about

I give thanks I can still do a pretty good impersonation of a strong well person for a few hours at a time...as long as I have at least twice as many hours to recuperate afterwards. After all the darting about and DIY yesterday I was very stiff and sore today and grateful to be left to my own devices today to potter or not...and for quite a lot of not! Rachel's great grandfather built this house in a very fine spot for admiring the view of natural beauty and maritime bustle...and nowadays, especially during holidays, of bustling tourists too!

I give thanks for the sunshine dazzling on the water this morning eventually luring me out and that I'd gone a little way, but not too far, when something happened to remind me every act of going anywhere is one of great courage, and how swiftly serenity can slip away. I give thanks for the wisdom to understand being loved for yourself is possible even when you're prone to these misfortunes, but that given the difficulty of loving yourself when they occur it's probably easier all round if there's no one else around trying to. It would be sad for someone to see how sad I get and not be able to fix me.

I give thanks for a dozy contemplative afternoon doing a bit of knitting, watching the weather changing, the ferries shuttling and the steam train puffing in and out with whistle blowing before eventually drying my tears, and other things including the weather, and getting back out there for round two. Although I've never stayed here before I've significant memories of time spent around and about with others so it felt important to make some new ones on my own...and not the ones from this morning! I give thanks I did...and will be even more so if I manage to get this posted as the internet's crashed so I can't use my tablet and I've just broken my charger so there's a limit to how much I can use my phone. Other people build houses, bank balances, relationships, networks, careers... I give thanks mostly I just do character building. The more you lose the more you get you see...

High and blow

There's not much I don't mind being woken up by but a good storm is one of my favourites so I give thanks for a wild night of howling wind - south westerly I think from the particular pitch of its whistle, the invigorating feeling it brought me and the footage of surfers in the dawn by the pier on Facebook this morning.

Invigoration's not a bundle of use when you're home alone and trying to be quiet in the middle of the night though so I thanks for finally getting back to sleep... and back awake again as I had a lot to do today. I give thanks for getting a lot of it done!

I give thanks for a successful diy supplies shopping trip with Laura incorporating a hot chocolate in a riverside pub a never knew existed. The year of living differently continues to do what it says on the tin.

I give thanks for hearing from someone I wish was happier but I'm always happier to hear from them so one out of two ain't bad...

I give thanks for thinking for an alternative title for this post...the first one that sprung to mind given the subject matter could have been somewhat misinterpreted ;-)

South easterly

I give thanks for the changing colours in the sky and sea as weather fronts sweep over and the light changes, for glowing clouds in the north and south at sunset yesterday and gulls gracefully wheeling on the thermals when the wind dies down.

I give thanks for an unexpected invitation. Well, most invitations are pretty unexpected I guess but this one was unusual in content as well as occurrence and I'm going to be spending a couple of nights away from home in a holiday home with Rachel and her husband about an hour's drive south of here. Oh and particular thanks for the offer of a lifts to get me there and half way back as well!

I give thanks for opening my bottle of Loch Fyne liqueur to celebrate and having a few smooth mouthfuls. Everything's gonna be fine fine fi-i-ine as Alanis Morissette would say...

I give thanks for waking up with a very random idea for something to do to encourage more fineness into my life...and that though arranging the encouragement took up most of the day without any signs of getting anywhere as least it was a few hours spent not feeling discouraged.

I give thanks for the solace of chocolate. I know I shouldn't have much chocolate but I should certainly have as much solace as I feel I need!

Fault in my stars

I give thanks for anyone finding any coherence in my post yesterday. I was so tired I could hardly blink straight! I give thanks for finding an unwatched episode of QIXL to keep me awake until a reasonable time to sleep and wake up in morning not night.

I give thanks for pain and fatigue for reasonably reasonable reasons, for the astonishingly full week I've had from coming up with (and beginning to act on) a cunning plan for some serious life rearrangement to designing and creating an item to enhance a necessary arrangement I find very aesthetically depressing. I have sorted out and been out and about, interacted and administrated, nodded and smiled and laughed and cried, tried to do my best and not beaten myself up when I've felt that I have failed. 

The only thing I haven't done as much of as maybe I should is the one thing I've done lots of today which is very little at all. Even my extra special reserve tank of energy for doing nice things with boys is empty now.  Though it never gets used for the purpose nature intended, it does get dipped into for the occasional day one takes me out to play so I guess I should give thanks for the various valid but sad reasons this doesn't happen very much either...

And while we're on the subject, I give thanks for reading a hilariously inaccurate horoscope this morning - apparently I should be feeling refreshed and have excellent prospects for love! I hereby bequeath all inappropriately optimistic astrological predictions to a fellow Aquarian in far better position to put them to good use. Do I have a particular one in mind? Oh yes, the one reading this and thinking - Does she mean me? Of course I do...who else?

Rocky roads

I give thanks for a great day out where usual rules apply - the better the day the harder it is to convey the multiplicity of gratitude felt!

I give thanks first of all for good company, for being with one of those rare souls who know me well and think I am too...and for his good lady wife kindly lending me him for several hours now and then so I can experience and enjoy this rare conjunction.

I give thanks for being able to share big difficult things that make us sad and silly little things to make us laugh like a customer called Cliff being called for his food order at a cafe at the bottom of one, or a man appearing to go up to the dog in a driver seat of a camper van to ask for directions.

I give thanks for knowing where to find the most beautiful views in our beautiful locality and being driven to places where I could see them...including some that were underground! For discovering the clever scallop shell lamps once used to light the caves and the wonderful total darkness inside them when all lights were extinguished.

I give thanks for facilities for refreshment, parking and comfort needs materialising where required including a table suddenly vacated to put down a tray I couldn't carry, and the hut on the back beach with hatch closed but back door not yet locked providing one last cuppa as the sun began to set. For doing more walking about (and up and down!) more than I would have thought I could, and that the bathwater's waiting for me to soak the aches and stiffness before they get too bad to get in it to do so.

I give thanks for glorious mild spring sunshine - out in baseball boots and hoody for the first time this year! I give thanks for knowing four years ago today the weather was remarkably warm and sunny too - I was in a high dependency unit following surgery and it was the main topic of conversation after essentials of patient care. I don't know if it was some kind of residual high from the anaesthetic, over enthusiastic pain relief or the sensation of tender attention unknown before or since... but I give thanks for the memory of feeling great safety and contentment while I was there. 

Fun and friendship

I give thanks for all kinds of fun and adventures in my dreams last night. Well, all kinds except the romantic kind...for which I give great thanks because they always make me wake up sad at their seeming utter impossibility. Instead my subconscious mind was taking me to new places to see new things for which I give great thanks as this can still happen in reality sometimes, and is far more appropriate to tell you about!

In my dreams I saw...

a Formula something racetrack that wound around low green hills where I realised if I could cross the track there was a little footpath on the side of one with a pie stall and an excellent view!

a quiz where people were shown old music videos without the sound and had to remember the bands and the song

a fat dog lying still with people moving its front legs around. They turned out to be giving it cardiac massage as it had just a heart attack...

a tuna sandwich I could taste...and knew it needed more mayonnaise

Clearly there's a food related theme...maybe just a slice of toast and half an apple wasn't really enough for my supper?

After all this activity in my sleep plus all the waking up in between with quite unfunny levels of pain, I give thanks for doing as little as possible today... I give thanks for Jo commandeering her chauffeuring husband to make sure I did as little as possible too but could still get to a Revive cafe get together, catch up with her and Ruth and hear some interesting news about possible treatments for fibromyalgia, plus get to the Post Office to pick up some mail including a parcel from the Easter Bunny aka Bob.

I give thanks that all being well I'm going to spend a few hours with my good friend Gary tomorrow. There are few people I feel I can truly be myself with and I have few opportunities to spend time with them. I give thanks I'm aware there may be a correlation between the two previous two statements...

I give thanks I'm aware some people will click on the link to my blog post more quickly because of the title... Caught you eh?

Catch a combe

I give thanks for the purplish sunset and butter moon peeping through the clouds last night. For the still murkiness this evening...I was out with reactive glasses on earlier and thought the world would seem brighter when I got on a bus and out of the sneaky sun's rays darkening the lenses, but it didn't!

I give thanks for catching an earlier bus after getting half way to the stop before realising I'd left my purse behind and had to go back up the hill to get it and down again which I achieved with all of two seconds to spare. It's years since I moved that fast and I give thanks years ago I used to be fit and fast so my body vaguely remembers the processes required.

I give thanks for enough hazy sunshine for a pleasant afternoon out with Mima taking the nearby cliff railway she's not been on before to the new bistro they've built on the beach down there which neither of us had been to before. I give thanks it's much nicer than the caff the storm wrecked a couple of years ago - so a fine case of an ill wind I reckon. I give thanks for having tasty tapas type food to share - always my favourite way to eat and a good way to indulge in small amounts of ingredients you're not really supposed to.

What with a cuppa later and a flapjack to share I give thanks we had so much to eat I don't feel the need to make any supper this evening at all. This is particularly appreciated as that bus catching stunt has left me so stiff and fatigued I'm tempted to make a flask of rooibos next time I get up off the sofa so the time after that I don't have to!

Missing links

I give thanks for a text from Linda wishing me good luck with hopes and plans I couldn't help but share with her yesterday. Sometimes despite my best intentions to nod and smile and keep conversation contributions to the topics other people prefer, the things that are really going on in my head do burst forth now and then...

I give thanks for a rubbish nights sleep with joint pain and heart ache, frets and regrets keeping me company...oh and the pretty moonlight of course! I give thanks because though I mostly keep my feelings to myself it doesn't mean I don't feel them, and talking to yourself about your feelings can be helpful in understanding yourself better which is useful, if uncomfortable at times... It can also help you understand other people better which is useful as well...because if you talk to other people about your feelings they'll probably respond by telling you about theirs!

I give thanks too as I'd been wondering how to conserve energy and rest the sore bits in preparation for something nice to do tomorrow, so being tired and wan today was good for helping resist the temptation to go out in the sunshine instead... I give thanks for several lovely peaceful hours with no neighbours around so that doing very quiet still things myself was particularly pleasant...until I had to spoil it all by doing something stupid like cleaning the black spots round the bathroom tiles. I give thanks for discovering bicarbonate of soda and white vinegar really brings sealant up a treat. I mean brings it up off the place it's supposed to be sealing. Oh well - I give thanks I was cleaning in preparation for re-applying sealant!

I give thanks for believing so much I'd win the free day's painting by decorators in a local draw, I'd even arranged a lift to a paint shop. I give thanks not getting what you want is good for your soul if not your kitchen ceiling...

I give thanks for this story of a friendship going far...
http://www.unilad.co.uk/video/man-plans-to-travel-across-europe-with-friends-as-the-backpack/
If you have enough love and support in life you can do so much more than if you're on your own. And if not? Well, hmm...you can write a blog being grateful for things you do have and slowly make a blanket to give to a charity for those who don't?

I give thanks for hearing this the other day and thinking it's sad but true that often what they do is do it to someone else...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQU4sIn96M4

True grit

Hmm...well, let me see...I give thanks for less pain when I woke up quite early this morning and for getting up and getting on with things while things were (in theory) more easily done. I give thanks for maintaining (mostly) a gritted teeth smile during a string of human hindrances to my plans, remembering the folk involved must have been having difficult days themselves to be so grumpy and unhelpful...and having me gritting my teeth at them probably didn't help at all!

I give thanks for eventually making it to knitting and even getting some knitting done in between drinking tea, admiring our Easter display and munching Jaffa cakes and some very nice mini eggs from Lidl. Thanks Linda and Dorothy!

I give thanks now everything is hurting again I'm home alone and anyone I'm grumpy with or gritting my teeth about will remain blissfully unaware...

I give thanks to Rachel for warning me well in advance she wouldn't be able to come this evening so I could steel myself for no treatment before treatment felt most required. I give thanks it was my turn to cook...and that I didn't, but got something I made earlier out of the freezer instead. I give thanks the washing up can wait...

Not like a virgin

I forgot to mention it was my wedding anniversary yesterday, and how grateful I am not to be married...well, not to that person anyhow! I give thanks for all we can learn from experiencing the 'wrong' relationships. How else do you think I got to be so wise, eh?

I give thanks for this story of love finding a way to make itself happen even when luck seems to be in short supply
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/20/homeless-man-big-issue-50p-married-wedding-bristol

I give thanks I don't have a car or I'd be up and down the road to that tip (ahem, sorry, I mean recycling centre of course!) Have you ever used the loo on a Virgin train - the kind that have a list of all the things they'd rather you didn't try to flush down them including junk mail and your ex's sweater? Well, I think of that list when I get purging urges and want to get rid of pretty much everything I can't imagine wanting to look at or use within the immediately foreseeable future. Obviously there's nothing inherently wrong with the desire to declutter - we all hang on to far too much stuff and often for lame and self limiting reasons, but in my experience there's always stuff you're going to want to look at or use pretty much immediately after you've got rid of it so it's good if it has to hang around a while 'til I'm sure. And traditionally, if it hangs around long enough (waiting for someone with a car to give me a lift perhaps) Bob will turn up and mention he's planning to buy one and I can give it to him!

In the meantime I give thanks for the healthy feeling of clearing dead wood - even literally to some extent. Quite why I've got a couple of logs in an all electric flat would take too long to explain but if anyone local has a stove or a campfire that could use them please let me know...

I give thanks for my rummaging turning up some Glucosamine to try for my joints and some tubular bandages to wrap my arms in from wrists to elbow. Can't have a bath in them (boo!) or do the washing up (hooray!) but it does ease the pain to wear them when I can.

I give thanks for a character in a novel I'm reading mentioning that stories don't really have a set place they begin or end. As I writer of fiction I'm aware sometimes the latter especially can be frustrating for one's audience... as well as a mighty fine get out clause for oneself!

Minding my ps and ks

I give thanks the weather turned so cool and murky yesterday afternoon, and has stayed that way, as I've been in lots of pain and have wanted to be snug and still and stay that way as well...

As immersion in warm water helps I give thanks my water supply can't be metred here so I can have as many baths as I like...though of course my electricity usage is metred so there's a limit to how many can be hot!

And as it's my arms and hands that hurt the most, and of course most things I do use them and hurt them, I give thanks for most of the neighbours being quiet so I could curl up on the sofa with...a French romantic comedy? Well, it was the sort they have on BBC4 so quite classy and quirky suitable for a movie snob such as moi...

I give thanks for looking in one metaphoric pocket and finding it less empty than I thought, whilst another turned out to have a smaller hole than I imagined. I give thanks for the irony of getting rather het up over the length of a phone call when the outcome makes my future seem a slightly less gloomy shade of grey...by more than the cost of an hour at local rates too...

I give thanks in fact I'm planning to celebrate later...with a potassium laden jacket potato!

Go girls!

I give thanks I have some good male friends and am confident one or more of them will be up for meeting up sometime soon... I'm spending so much time with girls I'm starting to knit like one! I give thanks to Jenny for giving me a lift to the library with our contribution to the Easter decorations, and for treating me to a cuppa and cake and a lift home via the supermarket. It was good to have a catch up...and also to consider my commitment to this rather cutesy project fulfilled. I give thanks I've got a dark poem and short story to get on with over the weekend plus the start of the C4's new F1 coverage to cast my eye over to redress the balance. I give thanks I'm feminine in my own way but not really the stuffed toy way...heavens if I carry on like this and I'll be asking for an Avon book!

I give thanks for reading about this team of real 'eggheads' and the quiz prize they won for a worthy cause. I may be biased but I reckon sometimes women can be just too brainy for there to be room for hair follicles in their heads as well!
https://uk.celebrity.yahoo.com/post/141213607269/an-all-women-team-with-alopecia-just-beat-the

I give thanks for coming across Laura in the Post Office as texting her was on my to do list when I came out. Even more thanks for hearing that after putting her and a prospective pupil's parent together via Facebook's local 'oracle' page I got her a job!

After a busy afternoon and early evening attempting to clear up the debris from a busy morning's stitching, I give thanks I finally finished unpacking the shopping just now and discovered a couple of bunches of daffs I'd forgotten I'd bought myself! Got myself some chocolates too...I've all kinds of manly charm me ;-)

I give thanks for learning a new word today -  formication. Yes I misread it at first too!

Rejoy

I give thanks for a bit less physical pain today and a bit less of the emotional sort too. I'm particularly grateful for the latter as it makes dealing with the former easier too.

I give thanks for the Sport Relief programmes about homelessness for reminding me of my good fortune, and also of the curious way we look at unfortunate situations others are in that we wouldn't wish for ourselves and think it's somehow OK for them...

I give thanks I forgot to have that drink. It's much nicer to have one when you're feeling good and would like to feel even more so...and even more so if you can do it with someone else of course. I give thanks my solitude is the saviour of my liver...

I give thanks for the spring sunshine as I had to go out and do things and I couldn't do things very fast. For having the wherewithal to top up one of the local food bank collection points and to buy a takeaway cup of tea to sit with afterwards. The lady said it was £1.30 but I noticed the sign said £1.40 and offered her the extra 10p, which she refused at first as she said it was her fault for not memorising the new prices. I give thanks for finding a shiny 10p piece on the car park outside as a reward for doing the right thing and insisting!

I give thanks for all the interesting things to be seen around and about including the name of this boat I found myself sitting by...I don't know if it means concerning joy or returning to it but both are good and I'm always up for a thirty-seven and a ready made blog post title!

I give thanks for earplugs and a blanket and a short but very sound sleep when I returned. For waking up and remembering only joy...for a moment or two anyway...

Hard feelings

Hmmm... Well... I give thanks I didn't have to get up for anything this morning as the pain that woke me up several times in the night was still paining away when I woke up for the day. I give thanks I know I've only myself to blame after flagrantly and without due care and attention cleaning the kitchen sink, taking a few snaps and knitting part of a stuffed bunny's pinafore yesterday. I'm not sure when these activities became extreme sports but friends, if you like any form of activity more energetic than blinking, and flagrantly fight back from terminal cancer to be considered 'worth' the surgery which precipitates fibromyalgia you might want to consider extreme sports without any care and attention to little details like parachutes, safety harnesses and brakes...or taking NSAIDs if you've broken kidneys. I give thanks I gave mine away to protect myself from temptation.

I'm sorry... this doesn't sound much like grateful does it? Sometimes it's hard to find that feeling though, as I'm sure you know.

Although it would hurt less if I did less I give thanks I can't do nothing, partly simply because things have to be done and partly because the distraction of doing things does help. I give thanks I don't have much in the way of comfort or assistance from others because I think I could easily get very comfortable with that.

I give thanks for deciding to sort out a load of old paperwork - useful, quite gentle on joints and muscles and tendons, cathartic to some degree and also poignant looking at letters and forms charting my change from a woman with a future to one with a past. I give thanks for paper hankies and no one around to tell me to pull myself together or offer platitudes.

I give thanks for the little miracle that is a Tesco grocery delivery and for managing to get dressed before it. I give thanks for a mostly murky day...not too much of 'the sea witch waves at me, flashing her diamonds and lace' (it's a poem, and I wrote it so you might not realise...)

I give thanks for a quiet bit when all the noisy neighbours were out and starting to write another which begins...

Lest we regret
Unbearably
The unforgotten wounds...

Bundle of chuckles me today, eh? I'll leave you in peace and listen to the unquiet ones. I wonder if it's too soon to open the whisky? I mean I've had it a few hours more than a week...

Come what may

I'm grateful for being able to see the sun going down from my kitchen window without having to lean right out...

I'm grateful for dinner, a treatment and a couple of hours catch up with Rachel. I'm grateful she too is going through some existential angst at the moment - not that I would wish any suffering or struggle on another, but if someone is dealing with similar difficulties to you it can be a bit of a relief to compare notes and commiserate. And the great thing about existential angst is that it's a great leveller - if everything seems pretty pointless it doesn't matter if your life might look from the outside quite rich in point like Rachel's or remarkably lacking in same like mine, because it all feel's the same. I'm grateful I've no one to try and 'cheer me up' because it's not that I'm not cheerful exactly, and seriously...there's no point!

I'm grateful I didn't book a seat to see the film Room as I'd originally intended as I decided I didn't want to be stuck in one...and I'm grateful for all the neighbours being out for a few hours so I felt less stuck in mine. I'm grateful for indulging in activities best done in isolation - snivelling, eating raw garlic, counting stitches and swearing at knitting - and, when the neighbours all returned, for trundling my aches and pains down the hill to take some supplies to those who have no rooms to be stuck in or have far too much room in their kitchen cupboards.

I'm grateful for taking a detour on the way home to properly say hello to the sea again, and for it being all wavy as the tide came in and making me smile for a while. I'm grateful for the beautiful may blossom and the bright blue sky...

I'm grateful I've a slice of spinach and feta pie for my tea because after knitting, cleaning the sink and washing up my hands are way too sore for chopping, stirring or using cutlery...

A little less conversation

I give thanks for a good old sob into my supper last night, sometimes it's the only thing to do. I give thanks if you think it's lame or weak to cry, as clearly you've no idea how defeated it's possible to feel... and that's definitely something to be grateful for!

I give thanks for immersing myself in the last two episodes of the utterly brilliant Icelandic TV drama Trapped, notable for even having excellent incidental music. I'm not usually a fan of that but as there were a lot of brooding silences in between the dialogue it was better that than hearing dialogue from nearby.

I give thanks for working out if I could pay off my mortgage and sell my flat (big ifs) I might be able to afford a retirement cupboard in one of the less fashionable parts of the north of the county. Wouldn't appeal at all if I hadn't also read on the local news of the endearing devotion of the local menfolk. Admittedly they were only in the news due to restraining orders, but as one was recorded as having sent four emails (one of which was merely an exclamation mark!) and the other stopped his car to put a bar of his would be beloved's favourite chocolate on hers, I reckon the women up there must be mighty hard to please - I've had less attention from chaps who've considered me one half of an item! And yes dear reader, I do understand neither having unwanted affection nor having your affection unwanted is actually funny at all but I laugh as easily as I shed tears and I give thanks for anything that makes me chuckle instead of sniff...

I've been in a lot of pain today so I give thanks for eventually not only convincing myself I ought to go out, but also that I could. I give thanks for a hot seat on the bus soothing the aches, and the sight of the rough and tumble sea, four magpies having a conference in the middle of a rugby pitch and a Landrover so utterly covered in mud I wondered briefly it were a brown one but the fact that only the wiper sweeps weren't kind of gave it away...I give thanks for the soft spring sunshine still pretty through a dirty window.

I give thanks for discovering a new pair of shoes in a charity shop I took a fancy to a couple of weeks ago still there patiently waiting for me to decide I 'deserved' them...

I give thanks for Imee Ooi's Chant of Metta to remind me to send any unwanted affection mentally, and for the sublimely poignant second movement of Bach's Double Violin Concerto in D Minor helping me rise above the bubblegum, sweat and profanities of the school hometime bus...even if it also made me sniff a bit! Go on, listen to it now...you know you want to...

Dreaming for one

I give thanks for a good sleep...and for my mind making good things happen while I did.

I give thanks for finishing unpacking my suitcase, and packing away some dreams and aspirations I somehow can't quite let go of altogether... I fully endorse the view that wishing your reality was anything other than it is is a sure fire way to suffer and be sorrowful, but sometimes it's a whole lot easier to deal with a present you find hard if you can believe the future might be better. I give thanks I understand as everything changes the future will always be different whether I decide the difference is better or worse when it arrives... Nothing ever stays the same and at least if you dream on your own you don't wake up and find someone else has decided your dream is actually their nightmare!

I give thanks for a new season of Catfish stories, for the delightful duo of Max and Nev and the jaw dropping shout at the TV on line romance situations they reveal. I give thanks for the way it shows that (almost) everyone wants to be cherished for who they are, and the sadder not finding that makes people the more they're likely to lie...or believe the lies they're told. I give thanks for the ones who find love, the ones who keep believing they will, and for those who politely get out of they way... and, particularly as illnesses are often used as a smokescreen for on line fakeness, I give thanks I'm in group three as no one who watches Catfish would believe in me anyway!

I give thanks for meeting Christine in the veg shop yesterday and deciding to get a big head of broccoli cut in two to put in our separate shopping baskets. I give thanks they're so helpful to people mostly cooking for one in there... I give thanks for lots of milk and cheese in the fridge so I could make a nightmare tea in a renal dietitian's eyes. I give thanks no renal dietitian got to see it!

I give thanks for more of that soft hazy sunshine, and a rather hazy lazy mood to go with it. I give thanks for fixing the printer and even more so the heater...though by the time I'd done those things I'd kind of run out of oomph for the creative ones I'd planned. I give thanks for the times the neighbours weren't unduly noisy, for earplugs and headphones when I felt they were. I hope they were using theirs when I played my guitar and sang a song...

Stitch in time

I give thanks for the pretty mist filtered sunlight today, the sea and the sky almost identical flat ice blue. I give thanks there was no irresistible glittery twinkle as just doing the essentials has been hard work, and though going out was essential playing was out of the question...I didn't even cross the road to see it closer so no photos of here Ness but here's one of there Ness instead...

I give thanks for a letter with an appointment to see a surgeon about the thing that hurts the most that is most likely to be fixable. Be a few weeks before that, and then a few more before further action if he's willing to take it, but in a way this is something to be grateful for as I'm not especially fond of hospitalisation and solitary recuperation up five flights of stairs is not a bundle of laughs either...which is something to be grateful for as laughing can hurt when you've been stitched as well...

Often after I've had some pleasant company I can feel a bit lonesome and down as normal life resumes, so in a way I'm grateful I've been feeling so sore and sorry for myself physically and watching catch up TV and slow motion knitting has been entertainment enough between the chores and naps...though you know (as ever) if you'd be so kind as to pop into the kitchen and make me a cup of tea that would be most awesome!

Bucking the trend

Gee but it's great to be back home...in some ways...and I give thanks for the ways in which this is so.

I give thanks to John and Jo for meeting me at the station last night with hugs and luggage lugging and a tasty supper waiting for me to swallow in my stupor, followed by John making me breakfast this morning and a sarnie for the journey, carrying my suitcase again even though it was now even heavier with added jars of home made jam and home made mayonnaise. All this softened the blow of my real homecoming which was far more lonesome and load bearing and frustratingly delayed so that I got back to the station here during an infestation of sugar primed schoolchildren and no taxis to be had. I gave thanks the prices in Starbucks widened my eyes so much I managed to stay awake during an almost hour long wait... and for the soft light on the estuary at low tide softening my mood...

I give thanks the management company finally managed to get the communal areas cleaned and the front door lock fixed while I was away so arriving here was a sigh or two less than that it might have been. I give thanks for my pretty clean spacious flat and to Jenny for ensuring the aptness of the middle adjective for my return. I give thanks for the hot water heating up for a bath in my own bathroom and the first load of washing on. I give thanks the TV, internet and lights and appliances all seem to have remained in working order, and that all that I set to record seems to have done so that I can spend the evening in Shetland and Iceland...if I can just stay awake that is!

And of course, in case you're wondering, I give great thanks for the great holiday I've had. I might not be able to go as far as I used to, nor to stay away as long, but my awesome budget trip planning skills are alive and well and will be ready for action again as soon as they're required...

Home thoughts from on board

I give thanks for a day of watching the landscape change - a pastime of which I'm inordinately fond - and that though the trains we've been on were a bit small and squashed our travelling companions were companionable. I give thanks for watching a rather elderly lady weave a yo yo shaped item through a complicated series of loops. Tatting? No, untangling her headphones so she could quietly watch TV on her tablet! I give thanks for the very civilised Scotrail practice of giving you an extra cup if you have tea to put the used teabag in...

I give thanks for bright blue skies this morning, more sunshine on snow on mountains, more Iceland substitute scenery (spoke to some locals who've been and say it is indeed)...and a pretty strip of sunset on the horizon this evening.

I give thanks to Jan for putting up with me for almost a whole week! She did all right for a girl...not too much wittering, not too much shopping and (especially appreciated) not too much wittering about shopping! I give thanks for all her help with things my hands are not so handy at like opening those tricksy little sachets of milk.

I give thanks for her allowing me long silences especially when I'm busy, not panicking too much about my nonchalant attitude to public transport departure times and propensity for wandering off just before them. I'd make a pretty good male I think, if I weren't such an excellent version of female of course!

I give thanks John and Jo are letting me break the long journey home at their home, making my tea and, I hope, allowing me to wallow and soothe my aches and pains in their bath...

Highland spring

I give thanks for quite spring like weather today and just enough spring left in my step to enjoy it with lots of rest and snoozing in between... I may not be very powerful but I'm a dab hand at power naps! I give thanks for a stroll by the river and round a graveyard with sunlight bright on snowdrops and crocuses and the thick snow on the mountain tops.

I give thanks that Jan is better at shopping than me...and brought me some Lush soap in her travels while I rested and snoozed. And that later when I thought she needed a little help choosing a gift for someone else I ended up choosing something rather unexpected for myself. I would never have guessed that I might do so...and neither would you unless you knew me a long time ago or met me quite recently and remembered what I said. I give thanks for opening a guessing question on Facebook and, amongst all the fun replies, as I wrote the last this last sentence someone who did indeed know me a long time ago guessed near enough...Whisky! Well, actually a mellow whisky liqueur which I fell for after a wee sip sample and will be sipping again if I can get the bottle home unscathed...

Reflected back

I give thanks for more grateful escape from the versions of reality for which I am not, this time for a bucket list journey. Silk Road? Orient Express? Route 66 with an Airstream on tow? Well, no... but you have to cut your bucket according to the cash it can carry and how well you can lug it along...so another scenic railway ride. I've ridden a few at home and abroad and this was up with the best this country has to offer, the best value certainly in terms of variety of landscape. This mum's not been to the Iceland she'd love to but gives great thanks for the vast snow fringed emptinesses she's seen on this trip, that remind her of pictures of it she's seen while leaving pictures of itself imprinted in her memory... the sudden 'oh!' of tumbling water by the tracks or sky reflected in its shallow meanderings through the scrub, the slow beat of buzzards and stone stillness of herons, bright bracken and tundra coloured deer, river becoming loch becoming sea...rock strewn shores and snowdrop drifted banks...

It was a long journey there and we didn't linger at the pause at the end of the line, just took a breath of air before sitting on the other side of the friendly staffed train to appreciate the other point of viewing, so I give thanks for other pleasures squeezed into the day. I give thanks for a mostly vegan cafe for Jan to choose and treat me to a late lunch, and for her understanding that sometimes I don't want to talk, just look at things and reflect...

I give thanks for a foresight of maybe a poem in the making...or maybe some other fictionalised version of my versions of realities. I give thanks for a snooze and a novel that's taken me to a house and a hospital in North Devon and a ferry port and bridge to a large Hebridean island all in a bath time's passing!

Shaggy cow story

After a few days rather enthusiastically flinging ourselves at the Highlands we've both been giving thanks for a day of taking it quite easy. ..I even passed up on most of the Great Glen scenery and slumbered gently for stretches of the journey on the bus. It's been a long while since I travelled such distances without a captain of the ship to mastermind the actual transportation and could sleep for England...so give thanks I'm in Scotland and have to wake up and appreciate it now and then!

I give thanks for a field of shaggy tawny Highland cattle. For finding a Lush shop as much by instinct (or subliminal distinctive smell?) as map reading. For a surprisingly good busker (it would be impolite to say why we were suprised he was good!)

I give thanks for all the locals I've heard praising more of the astonishingly bright sunshiny weather - it's always good to have one's efforts appreciated!

I give thanks for an absolutely delicious dinner at the hotel here. The food at the other one was OK but this? Mmmmm... I give thanks for it being free on the first night to (successfully) try to tempt us to have more...

Would if I could

I give thanks for an amble that turned into a ramble and, cruising for a snoozing afterwards...I give thanks for a nap!

I give thanks for getting where we thought we might like to despite the most misleading map and signs...and someone telling us it would probably be shut. I give thanks it would have been had we been further misled and got there a few minutes later. I give thanks for beautiful scenery with few humans around to sully it...and that the ones we interacted with tended to be male and friendly... 

I give thanks for certain accents and physiques ;-) 

I give thanks for finding cake, hot drinks, loos and a postbox when required...

I give thanks for clement weather - sunny spells and not too cold to be out and about, but cold enough for tiny star shaped snowflakes to fall and settle briefly before melting.

I give thanks for the curious coincidence that when you take a novel away with you to read it often turns out to be at least partly set where you are...

I give thanks for getting some sort of blog post together despite a very distracting concurrent conversation with Jan...

Double lochs

Lots of gratitudes since last I posted as one would hope might be the case... wonder how many I'll remember before I click the post button...

The pleasantly uneventful first part of the journey apart from the biplane looping the loop and spiral diving high above the train... The incredibly friendly Lebanese restaurant/takeaway (where I'd bought food before and was glad to find again) giving me free pitta and baklava as they were so busy and I had to wait while they cooked the falafels fresh...and Jan being given free tea to go with out take out dessert cake... finding seats suddenly available in the cavernous crowded station.

Strange as it may seem gratitude for the very long delay leaving London as this meant realising a long held dream and crossing the full splendour of Rannoch in full daylight...thick snow on the tops and a scattering trackside too with part frozen tarns and lochlets reflecting the bright blue sky, lots of well camouflaged deer to spot and (after a free light snack breakfast as they'd run out of cooked things we might eat) arriving in time for a quick check in at the hotel and grab a slab or two of homemade cake before setting off another of the region's most scenic lines. Best of all I'd like to be campervanning and walking round here but, as I can't be, I'm grateful for the trains taking me to such wildness.

I give thanks for Jan finding something veganish in amongst the seafood offerings for lunch... and for me finding a seafood one I wanted - mmm monkfish coconut curry! I give thanks for also finding a skein of bluey greeny pinky mauvey flecked wool that I decided I'd call Raasay and the women selling it understood... Oh and a great brightening doubling up rainbow made by the only rain we saw (that didn't rain on us!)

Sound of sleet

I give thanks for the brilliant sunshine this morning and sight and sound of soft sleety hail this lunchtime making me think 'Ooh, I must go out in that!'

I give thanks for getting what needed to be done done (I think) and getting on a train. For pausing to pick and sing a song on my guitar before I left, that one of you maybe knows which one I picked...and that I remembered the words and the feelings that inspired them.

I give thanks for the changing light on the countryside as weather passes over...the flock of birds in flight with sunlight so bright on the white parts near their tails they looked almost electrically illuminated.

I give thanks that I'm going somewhere and someone wants to go with me.

I give thanks for free WiFi on this stage of the journey as I'll be without a connection for a while after that...

I give thanks this train is going to the end of the line and I am too as I can't guarantee to stay awake...

Night in shining drama

Well now...what's to say? After a busy day last night I was grateful to go to bed early, dropping swiftly into deep and dreamless sleep before being woken by a storm of shouting and banging doors. I was grateful eventually everyone involved settled again, but I couldn't and I gave thanks I always try to find something to be grateful about otherwise I really don't think I would have been at all...

I gave thanks that I've no one to fight with, and though doors are frequently closing to me they're not often actually slammed.  I gave thanks it's not me running around screaming in the middle of the night, that despite the cards I've been dealt, the poor way I've played them and the way I've been played, I don't kid myself anything that comes in a bottle or packet could improve the situation. I gave thanks I don't blame and though it feels unbearably hard just to be sometimes, let alone to be here, I know it's nobody's problem but mine.

I gave thanks for the ferocious wind, the twinkling stars in the clear sky and the twinkling lights of the ships in the bay. I gave thanks to Jan and Gary for offering to take time out of their lives to help me escape from mine for a bit.

Today, I've been grateful to catch up with rest in the quiet bits, and in the noisier ones to catch with what I should have been doing instead of resting. I give thanks I've finished the dress alteration that's been exercising my brain as well as my hands. I give thanks for anything that exercises my brain in any ways other than dwelling on things I cannot fix that break me.

For duck's sake

Er... I give thanks for not so sweet dreams? Not unsavoury nightmares, but nothing too unbearably blissful either...

I give thanks for the bright blue sky and sunshine, the varied coloured clouds, the rain and rainbows, howling wind, hail, sleet and almost snow...all in a very short space of time.

I give thanks for being outdoors mostly in the sunny bits...For a scenic bus ride to get some things I needed, and that as several of them cost less than expected I could buy a little something I didn't!

I give thanks for a take away cup lid rolling down the road like a miniature hub cap... For ducks foraging in the corner of a field. Saw one up a tree not long ago...ducking amazing!

I give thanks for Silvana taking my bloods more gently than she did last month when my arm ended up matching my jumper. You may know the jumper... if not you can probably work out the colour scheme...

I give thanks for exchanging a few pleasantries with some of my more thoughtful neighbours encountered around and about...For earplugs, headphones, compassion and some teeth left to grind for those less obviously so...

Home learning

I give thanks for the sweetest dreams. Gee but it's sad thing to wake up sometimes...

I give thanks those gluten free crackers turned out so well, and that Rachel was genuinely grateful for both those and her early birthday gifts including gluten free crumpets! It often seems difficult for me to find ways to please others when there's so much they can do for me so it's a lovely feeling when I'm sure I have.

I give thanks for her making me two cups of tea and doing the washing up... Very occasionally someone other than Rachel makes me a cup of tea but she's pretty much the only person who ever does my washing up!

I give thanks somewhere I'm going reminded her of somewhere she's been...and of the first dance song from her wedding, this version of which moved me to tears but in a goodish way. I've such deep sorrow behind the smiles just now it's a blessing to have a socially acceptable excuse for a spot of public weeping...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aVKLpVNZ6PA

Part of the poignancy is due to my upcoming travels taking me nearly home. I can't go really home for logistical reasons (I'd need someone to drive me and put up with accompanying tales and more tears)... and also because of course you can never return to a remembered emotional state of being, as the very fact you remember it means it no longer is as it was. I give thanks for all the opportunities for learning in this - including the reminder that emotions are not logical things!

I give thanks for this random collection of facts you probably didn't know about. Well, one you did as I told you before...feel free to forget some of the others...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-35667660