Blowing warm and cool

I give thanks for an hour of music to my ears last night - a documentary on the Everly Bros charming harmonies that melted the hearts of a generation before mine and still make me go all dreamy sighed. I give thanks for getting my earplugs in very snugly in afterwards to soften the eternal sounds of an angry woman and a man who doesn't understand or, maybe even more archetypal, of one human blaming another when their great expectations don't come to be.

My weariness amazes me today...someone should write a song about it. Oh well, I give thanks I had no one to meet who might have been disappointed by my limpness...or my stiffness...there are situations when its possible to be both! I could weep with the pain and fatigue and frustration of it so I give thanks that haven't so far, and for a phrase of two in a Nick Hornby book and the QI elves' TV show actually making me laugh instead.

I give thanks for eventually hobbling off down the road to get some of the many things that need to be done done and that, though very windy, it was pleasantly warm in the hazy sun. I give thanks my town is teeming with tourists for the businesses that need their patronage, but it can make non holiday life quite arduous and given the amount of human traffic jams I give thanks for some opportunely placed seats. Also for free tea at Waitrose and a 50p slice of chocolate gateau from the Swiss patisserie - you can't blame them for coming can you?

I give thanks for my new cool bag for keeping things cool in the queues, but that I didn't succumb to the lure of rhubarb and ginger ice cream on offer at the Co-op. That sounds lush for people with cars...though I might have a cunning plan for a late afternoon bus ride later in the week that might be cooler and quicker.

I give thanks though I didn't get to watch any tennis I didn't miss much as, after a complete wash out yesterday there was very little played today. Where's Charles Aznavour when you need him eh?

Guardian soul destroyers

I give thanks I'm getting better at not talking to people. For years I sent letters, cards and postcards...and then emails, texts and messages too before it dawned on me if I'm not hearing from others they probably don't want to hear from me. The trouble with understanding something is we tend to want to share our knowledge and so I give thanks a proper academic study can now back up what I've been trying to explain for ages and get told I have low self esteem (Low self esteem? Me? I'm an Aquarian - you canNOT be serious!), or told about faults and foibles I have that are detrimental to my likeability (which isn't that good for the self esteem to be honest and, as what constitutes a failing tends to be subjective, not really very constructive either) or referred to that curious psychological phenomenon known as 'self fulfilling prophesy' which is mysteriously only detectable in others and produces an infuriatingly smug tone in one who thinks they've found it. Anyway, in case you haven't heard about this research there's lots of articles in the media picking out whichever points the writer or editor felt most pertinent to their publication but here's one to start you off...

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/may/27/are-your-friends-really-your-friends-oliver-burkeman#comments

Well, that seemed to turn into a bit of a rant so I give thanks I know when I'm ranting and you can give thanks I've stopped! I also give thanks I've stopped trying to do most things for today...well for now anyway. On the whole I reckon I am getting better at doing less...but usually only after doing rather a lot! I even managed not to go out today and that's a serious challenge when the sun is shining and warm. People say 'Don't you feel better when the weather's nice?' and of course you do if you're better enough to go out in it but it's even harder if you're not..

Um...what else? Watching foreign subtitled stuff on my tablet is good as I can't do anything much at all while I do that so I give thanks I'm still finding a few bits here and there that appeal. Oh and I'm grateful I found a new series of Sewing Bee has started because it's one of the few things in English I understand! And of course I've done some sewing myself which is a bit of a compulsion at the moment but one for which I'm very grateful. It keeps me from being naked for one thing. Not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with that but it's good to have compassion for others I feel. Speaking of which, I can hear a particularly dissatisfied soul grumping and thumping about at the moment so I give thanks for Imee Ooi's Chant of Metta to remind me to wish them kindness.

Everything in the garden

I give thanks for a day with an usually large number of things to give thanks for. I mean I know there are always loads more than we think, but it's such a delight not to have to scratch your head and wonder what there is to be delighted about.

First of all for the weather. Oh yes, I love all kinds of weather, but sunshine warm enough for even me to be outside with the covers off, is my most favourite weather of all because something inside me untangles that spends nine months of the year in a knot.

And then for good company. This does me good emotionally, as well you might think it might, but also physically as it distracts me from discomfort and tiredness so that I can do more as well as enjoy it more...

And for being in aesthetically pleasing places - a beautifully growing garden of memory/hope for someone who disappeared, a lush jungly park and sandy splashy beach all conveniently within a few footsteps of each other and convenient for where I live. For tea and lemon meringue pie in the sun, a paddle in the sea and burying my face in fragrant dangles of wisteria...

For getting home in time for some excellent tennis. For rain stopping play long enough for me to make some food and chivvy my sewing chores along including finding some just right materials in my stash to replace the limp trimmings that had to be removed from the top I bought yesterday. Thanks also for pause stopping play when my exertions caught up with me and I just had to have an instant nap...and then catching the highlights of an unusually damp and non-processional Monaco Grand Prix.

I give thanks to my mother for teaching me to thread a sewing machine, to appreciate 'Oh, I say!' tennis and be interested in words. It's not exactly roots and wings and a pretty meagre legacy but today they have all stood me in good stead.

Czech this out

I give thanks for getting out in the hazy sunshine for an hour or so this afternoon to do a couple of necessary things like drink a 50p takeaway cup of tea on the back beach and buy a new top for 99p in a charity shop sale. The piggy bank is rather lean at the moment so a cheap treat is particularly welcome. The top needs a bit of a makeover/refit but that's OK...I give thanks for the opportunity to be cunning and creative with textile engineering.

I give thanks for amusingly being passed twice going down the hill by the same presumably confused wedding party in ribbon bedecked vintage cars. Made me a bit envious though - I have a thing about leather seats!

I give thanks for a picture from my collection as my camera didn't make it out of my bag today. It looked a lot like this only not so empty as the season is now in full swing.

I give thanks for looking for some films or TV to download for offline times, and coming across this dark (literally and metaphorically) foreign gem which sadly expires in a few days so I shall have to up the tablet dose in the meantime! That's OK too. Sometimes snuggling under the covers and shutting out the world with headphones is the best way to spend an evening round here. Well, the best available anyhow... I give thanks for settling down to watch an episode earlier and falling fast asleep - but that was because I was so tired so no reflection on the series at all.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-lens/episode-guide

I give thanks I can smell the peppers, red onions and vine tomatoes roasting for tea so I know it's time to put the pasta on, and get out the feta and pesto. I give thanks for all the different foods we have to eat now compared to when I was a child.

Scrub that!

I'm grateful I scrub up so well - my kitchen, that is. I'm not sure if I scrub up well myself any more... it's been a long time since there's been any need. I'm grateful there's no need tonight anyway...I'm absolutely exhausted!

I'm grateful for Jenny finding time to come and help for a couple of hours so that all is pretty much as spick and span as can be in there and the there's just the living room to finish reorganising and revamping. Then I think I'm going to need a holiday...

I'm grateful I managed to wrestle the oven light cover undone and the blown bulb out of its socket. There used to be someone who helped me with that as it's a fiddly and truculent contraption but they're too busy these days so I was delighted I succeeded on my own with the aid of a little LED lamp to see what I was doing. I'd be even more grateful if I'd remembered to remove the lamp at the end of the process, before turning the cooker on for my tea! I'm grateful now it's cooled down I can see tho misshapen it's still turn off and onable. I can relate to that...

I'm grateful it's a beautiful evening to start the weekend for everyone with places to go and people to see. Oh, and I'm grateful I've just remembered Mima asked me if I'd like to go and see a garden with her on Sunday so I'm one too!

May day

I give thanks for the May day - a day that felt like May instead of maybe we'll die of hypothermia. I give thanks for staggering about a bit...less staggering would be preferable of course, but it was stagger or sit still and in between sitting still some staggering about in the sunshine was required. 

I give thanks for the sitting still in the sunshine - that was the best bit! For a takeaway tea and a leftover puff... For the textures and colours at very low tide...

I give thanks for seeing a few folk I knew in town enough to say hello to, and Laura who I know enough to say more to. I give thanks for a catch up chat, and that I was able to ask her for help with something - not carrying me and my shopping home which would have been ideal at the time, but watering my plants in a couple of weeks when I hope to be away for a few June days. I don't like asking for help so I give thanks I have few opportunities, but plant watering is something even a well person might ask for so I didn't mind as much. I give thanks for finding out half term is starting and she's off on a trip she's been looking forward to...I give thanks for everyone for whom half term means double fun.

I give thanks for Soula's hummus for my tea, with salad and focaccia - something easy to get on a plate and get  in my mouth as my top jointshurt as much as the bottom ones. I give thanks for the bath water heating up and the weather cooling down - I need to help myself to some rest.

When bush comes to shrub

I give thanks for the pretty climbing, creeping, spreading things that flower this time of year - clematis and wisteria, laburnum, rhododendron and the rest.

I give thanks for the smell of newly cut grass still green and damp, and the whispery roar of the surf breaking over the shoals when the tide is low and the wind is strong.

I give thanks for making it outdoors and for managing to stay reasonably warm in this unseasonably freezing weather. I give thanks for making it home and making tea before utter incapability set in. I give thanks for a most deliciously flavoured strawberry and lemon puff from the Greek deli. As nice a pie as I have ever eaten!

I give thanks one of the benefits of a life lived largely on the edge of other people's is that any conflict is largely internal - only one person has to feel it at once and never on the edge of the bed... I give thanks for the three people who took a few minutes to wave from the edge of their lives in the last twenty four hours via text, or message or email...always appreciated! One of them actually on the ocean at the time...one is most impressed!

Restaurant at the end of 2001

I give thanks for Rachel coming to share yesterday's pop up banquet, and bringing some organic pumpernickel and Belvoir pop with her too!

I give thanks for making it to the last of the vocal coaching sessions - they have been hard work but oh so rewarding, not least because it's such a joy to the see the joy in others when they feel rewarded too. I hope our musical director appreciates the new tuned instrument he has to work with, and that we made our tutor aware of how much we appreciated her work with us...but I'm grateful I can be quite sure that members of the choir appreciated being told they were the strangest bunch of characters she'd ever encountered - much affirmative nodding of antennae and waving of tentacles there! Well, OK, slight exaggeration, but we are for the most part beyond box of frogs and well into restaurant at the end of the universe territory and inordinately proud of the fact. I give thanks for finding a place not only to enjoy the delight of singing in harmony, but feel the comforting and unusual sensation of being surrounded by my own one-of-a-kind kind.

I give thanks for understanding the many folk over many years who've pointed out ways in which I could be better at being have thought they were doing the right thing by telling me so...and that it's OK for our ideas of what constitutes 'right' to differ...

I give thanks for watching the final episode of The Silk Road, finding out who Zarathusa was and what it was he spake about, plus the origins of the paisley motif. Is this boteh an eternal flame?

I give thanks for finally unpacking the bag I took out with me yesterday and finding an old mobile for recycling from Cathy and a packet of trifle sponges from Rosalind that I'd forgotten about.

I give thanks for using wisely all my relative vigor of the last few days and that today my pain levels are such the universe can unfold or end without me, and I don't care if I have a table at the restaurant or not. I give thanks some nice people in France have organised a tennis tournament and some other nice people put it on free TV... And I give thanks the matches have not been too riveting as I've been sleepy and weepy this afternoon so that needed to attend to that as well... but not when the Tesco delivery arrived.

Be good to your elves

I give thanks to the elves for making me laugh with their quite interesting alternative news stories. For Blenduko which I found a new version of for my phone. You can keep your candy and angry games, I like arranging colours!

I give thanks for keeping my eyes tight shut as long into the day as I could. It's not that I don't like Mondays, just waking up to any day sometimes... For feeling I was too tired and sore to do anything when I did, and then getting on and doing it anyway. For bright birdsong in the gardens and shades of silvery grey on the sea.

I give thanks for a cup of tea and a natter with some knitters. For a thoughtful card and gift of biscuits in gratitude for knitted animals for Christine.

I give thanks for tasty roasted pepper and feta soup for tea, and toffee apple rice pudding for afters, made without recourse to recipe books, newspaper food supplements and the like. I quite like arranging ingredients too, especially when you don't seem to have the right ones for a meal...but then remember it's just not the right meal you're thinking of. Metaphor for life in there I'm sure...along with the dodgy grammar!

Clear uncut

I give thanks for the sky clearing as the sun went down yesterday so there was, if nothing so grand as a sunset, little flecks of gold and pink tinged cloud on deepening blue...and for the swollen lemony moon stealthily climbing behind the trees.

I give thanks for encouraging comments from people who clearly do appreciate my sharing of my thankfulness...that they get some sort of pleasure from peering into my virtual corner now and then and checking I'm still seeking the splendid in my isolation. 

I give thanks for tackling one of those tasks that really do get harder the longer that you don't - defrosting the freezer. Ice ice baby and wet wet wet! Also for finally getting round to listening to my voicemails from Confused from Somerset in case he'd said something that really needed responding to. No, nobody I've dated...but a rather elderly and inarticulate chap who has my phone number and clearly thinks I'm someone I'm not (and yes, sadly, that could be several people I have!) And, before you suggest I phone him and explain I'm not the person he thinks he's talking to, experience has shown this can lead to people assuming I must know the person whose phone number is not mine...or, even more complicated, thinking I AM the person they think I am but am being petulant or playing a game...

I give thanks for the warmth as the showers cleared late this afternoon and enjoying a fantasy someone would call and say 'What a lovely evening! Do you fancy driving out somewhere?' I couldn't take myself out somewhere as I was lugging a bag of bargains up the hill from Waitrose at the time...but I give thanks this wore me out so much I didn't care (much)...

I give thanks for a dream I was moving to a home so perfectly pleasing it made me weep with joy. And for realising the equally vivid one where it dawned on me I'd become extremely chubby without noticing wasn't true...after going to the mirror first thing to check. 

I give thanks for the uncut meadowy verges...

Why am I here?

The page views have been dropping off a little lately, and while I'm genuinely grateful folk have better things to do than read my blog it made me pause and wonder whether after almost five years I should still be writing it at all.

Someone once suggested I should be 'spicing it up' a bit, which I would if I could but it's about finding the things to be grateful for in my days, and there's rarely anything spicy going on, in fact often not much that's obviously nice at all. And that after all is the point...and so I give thanks for carrying on peering into the doom and gloom and finding the little twinkles of light, the little treasures in a life that's poor in so much we're taught to value. And if other people appreciate my appreciation, I certainly appreciate that... but if not, well it's not compulsory or necessary to validate the practice in any way and I give thanks for working that out.

I give thanks many several sets of neighbours were enjoying their evening yesterday for their sakes, and even more so for mine that I found a quiet corner to do the thing you can have more and more of when you have less and less of pretty much everything else - meditation.

I give thanks for the grey wet weather today, just perfect for staying indoors getting on with many chores. I give thanks for the sound and smell of the rain, the bright greens of newly unfolding leaves.

I give thanks for a surprising amount of energy and that though lots of bits of me hurt I've been able to work round or through the pain. For cooking and cleaning and sewing and sorting out paperwork and possessions. For a delicious dead to the world late afternoon siesta. For the smell of my dinner waiting...

Romancing the sewing machine

I give thanks for catching up with my horoscope which I've not read for a while. Apparently I'm entering a phase of romance and creativity. Hmm, well I'll be romancing the sewing machine if I can just find a favourite pattern I made and seem to have lost... and, of course, wishing well those for whom the first part of such a prediction is not such an unlikely idea. I give thanks I don't have more commercial tastes, though I can see it would make things easier on both counts!

I give thanks for choosing this fabric on line to make a little top, and finding it so pleasing now it's arrived I've decided to make a bigger top and have sent for another metre. You can't tell what things are going to feel like from a photo, and unless there's a visual clue, it's hard to judge the scale of a print. But this one (though you can't tell from the photo either!) is exactly right...

I give thanks for tracking down a missing package waiting for me at the Post Office up the hill behind where I live - quite a long way up so I give thanks for finding a bus service that goes up there too. I give thanks for the rest of the passengers making me feel young and fit...until I'd walked back down again!

Rain parade

I give thanks for waking to blue sky and watching it turn to grey...For feeling the drear and doing it anyway.

I give thanks for sorting out another pile of unwanted stuff, and making the cab driver laugh. I tell them the day I come down for my ride dressed a bin bag instead of carrying one they'll know the sorting out is finished!

I give thanks for the soft summer rain and my pretty waterproof. I love being out in the rain if I don't get too cold and wet, and sing if there are no other people around or just beam at them if there are. The sight of a more than middle aged woman wearing a flowery mac and a demented smile usually makes other people grin back too so I'm grateful for that...

I give thanks that living and going about your business here is usually a pretty jolly experience anyway...for the people who made me smile and chuckle this afternoon.

I give thanks for discovering without the Silk Road's trading routes we could not have rhubarb crumble! I can't have rhubarb crumble because the freezer needs defrosting and I must eat what's left inside it...I give thanks I'm sure I'll still get my just desserts.

Bit on the side

I give thanks for the little cross body jade leather bag I found in Totnes market earlier this year...not only for its intrinsic and serendipitous pre-loved charm but because I take it with me if I go to the big recycling bins and might...just might...have a cuppa on the seafront before I come home so take a bit of cash in the inside pocket. And sometimes I find the change next time I look!

I give thanks for noticing a funny lump when I was trying on some of the summer clothes I've been making/scouring ebay for (just in case we get some or I go and get some somewhere else). It's nothing to worry about, just odd and rather amusing...as my left arm is too weak to do much, and my charm too weak to have people say 'Hey, let me do that for you!', I have one bulging bicep on the right!

I give thanks my aches and pains were a bit gentler today so I could go out and get some more. For the changeable weather...for not getting wet in the interminable waits for late buses...and for resisting the temptation just to lie down by the side of the road at the ones that meanly don't have seats where you can see the bit of it you need to.

I give thanks for one of those little Italian lemony custard filled crunchy croissant things to munch when I finally got nearly where I needed to go...and for a man shouting on the pavement about bargains in his close to closing time baker's shop so I could get a lovely light rye loaf and a solid English bun for later.

I give thanks for swapping my envy of the folk in private vehicles getting from A to B more quickly, and sometimes more companionably, than I for gratitude for my top deck view over the hedges to the crazy patchwork of crops, and cropped and red ploughed fields...

History repeating itself

Gordon Bennett, I give thanks for Alan! There's been too much pain and tiredness to go out, or do much in the way of creative or constructive pursuits, and my mind much too full of stuff I mind thinking about to do nothing...but I had recorded the History Boys for afternoons such as these. Brilliant film! Took me ten years to get round to seeing it but well, the time's got to be the right time, hasn't it?

I give thanks for my wireless headphones for blocking out extraneous sounds. For making some for others by laughing out loud in places. For pause to pause pausing and do a few odds and ends here and there.

Hmm...what else? For a few days I've been meaning to say I've been grateful for being warm enough but it's been borderline nippy again today... so I won't. For a fleece and a fleecy throw.

I give thanks for a nightmare I can't remember, but for remembering the relief when I woke up. Usually waking up to reality is the nightmare so a bad dream can have its good points...

Carry on regardless

I give thanks for a nap this afternoon..for remembering sometimes when I feel I can't carry on, it's actually OK to stop.

I give thanks for remembering there actually is no one to impress, please, pacify... I've heard if you've had the kind of upbringing where you feel you can't, it can be so difficult to stop trying you seek out other people to succeed at failing for as well... and I give thanks I understand the psychology of this even though I regularly forget and judge myself now there's no one else around to do it.

I give thanks for Rachel arriving after I'd written the above and having similar thoughts about achievement anxiety on her mind. For her bringing a delicious banquet of cold nibbly dishes - hummus, rice salad etc - and for getting on and eating it so I could be treated before choir.

I give thanks for going to choir. We're still working with the vocal coach and it's still awesome in the proper sense of the word. Today we were shown sound alchemy the like of which none of us had quite experienced before - groups of three standing together singing the same phrase and then sounding completely different when they changed places. It's all to do with the particular frequency of individual voices and your own even sounds different when you do it!

I give thanks for experiencing the delight when it's right both as participant and audience and for realising it's a metaphor for life...you've got to be next to the right people...though the right people depend on what you're trying to do right I suppose.

I give thanks for Gary's kind thoughts about the things I cant think about... and Rachel's thoughtfulness leaving me leftovers in the fridge to make a nice surprise to come home to..

Thought police

I give thanks for waking later than of late to brilliant sunshine, and thinking I'd like to go out in it... somewhere I could doze in it and not feel vulnerable or stupid...somewhere near a bus stop (with a bus on Sundays) and a loo...and not too many people! Unfortunately it's been an every little thing she does is tragic sort of day, so finding getting ready so exhausting I gave up on the impossible logistics of that.... I give thanks I did get ready to go out however, and for finally making it to the nearest spot of sand before the incoming tide had covered it and the clouds had covered the sky. 

I give thanks for Canned Heat to deal with the nearby barking dogs - sixties blues rock music, not a flame thrower. I give thanks for one retriever's particular pitch breaking through my ear insulation and realising it was my neighbour's dog. I give thanks for a bit of a chat, despite the fact that he's a disgruntled dialysis patient so often wants to talk about things I want not to think about. I'm often guilty of wanting to talk about what other people don't want to think about so I'm sure it redresses the karmic balance a bit...

I give thanks for trespassing a footstep or two onto someone's drive to bend a bough of lilac down and breathe in the beautiful fragrance...for stooping to rescue a little snail foolishly/bravely crossing the road. I give thanks for a library picture of the sea as I didn't have my camera head or hands on...

Um...what else? Well, there's a man around here who, though not in the first flush of youth, bears a more than passing resemblance to Stewart Copeland when he was of an age to adorn a young woman's bedroom thoughts. I'm always grateful when I see him. I can do shallow too...

Free trial

I give thanks for a bit more sunshine and energy today, and that despite the nippy breeze it was warm enough to sit on the sea front a while. I give thanks for a free cup of Waitrose tea and a free seat to sit on.

I give thanks for watching people seeming to have fun, and that I didn't see anyone I knew and have to try to pretend to be the person they'd prefer me to be.

I give thanks for nice things waiting for me to collect them at the Post Office...bits ordered from eBay and old jewellery revamped by Jan.

I give thanks for a fish finger sandwich for my tea.

I give thanks for getting three quarters of the way through another day. I give thanks I know they're precious and I should try to enjoy them more but at the moment they feel quite a trial.

Wet and dry

Well, I thought the sun was going to come out properly today, but as I couldn't I'm rather grateful it did not and the weather was mostly murky with the occasional heavy shower. I give thanks I can blame my aches and pains on doing so much, and my sadness on thinking so much now I've stopped. Someone very kindly asked me how I was feeling and, unusually, really wanted to know, and I was grateful for the encouragement to get my emotions out and look at them but some things don't bear dwelling on too long...some things don't bear bearing too long to be honest...

I give thanks though my energy tank is dry, and the enthusiasm one has had a leak for a long time and won't hold much any more, my empathy one is still fairly full and I aim to be respectful and considerate of other people's feelings. It's so easy when you're hurting to stop caring if you make others hurt too...or, I suppose, when you're not hurting, to forget that others might be..

I give thanks that people who were on the seafront here at the right times would have seen dolphins today...or so I heard...virtually...

I give thanks for hearing the cuckoo calling on the edge of the moor yesterday, with my own ears...and for remembering the desert is bound to seem harsher when you've been at the oasis a while...

I give thanks for the comfort of my bath, my comfortable bed and Fair Trade Earl Grey tea...

What a drag!

First of all apologies for everyone who's had boy band songs in their heads for the last twenty four hours - well, unless that's your thing of course, in which case I hope you're giving thanks!

I give thanks, in the interests of tidiness over the last few days, for amassing lots of bits and and smaller bags in one of those huge oblong plasticky ones you get in cheapy shops...and then twigging that I could slide bump down the stairs instead of unpacking or carrying it. I give thanks for laughing out loud when I thought of neighbours wondering if I was disposing of a body...and as I've got a wicked chuckle if they heard that they're probably even more convinced! Of course I know you're not supposed to lift with your back, but my knees aren't keen either and my hernia really would rather I didn't at all, so I give thanks for 'pacing myself' as possible, taking a load down and then stopping and doing a sitting down thing for a while. I give thanks for a long over due messenger chat with Gary filling in the gaps in between...

So much stuff has so much stuff attached to it...so I give great thanks to Mima and Jenny for their assistance in disposing of some of mine, though the reason I've gone back to calling it a tip is that over the last few years the folk running the local one have been far less interested in salvage than they used to be and I ended up bringing one bag of really quite useful items back when they consigned so many of the others to landfill after the merest glance!

Well, whatever you call it and whatever they do, I give thanks for the rain stopping when we got there and for the enjoyment of the second part of our day - a bluebell quest, which was eventually very successful. I give thanks for the sun coming out when we got out of the car and going in when we got back in; for a nice spot of lunch and for walking far further than we intended and indeed than I would have thought I could have these days. And yes it hurt but oh my did it feel good!

I give thanks for taking my camera and getting a few good shots of the the hazy blues of flowers and greens of the trees in the valley below. This is my favourite though...as we walked through the blossom snow from some unnaturally tall cherries stretching up above their companions in the woods.  

I give thanks for dragging myself back up the stairs and flopping on the sofa, before realising I needed to go to bed for an immediate nap! I give thanks for the gorgeous lemony light when I woke up... and yes...at last...you know what I've been waiting for...thunder!!!

Nothing at all

It was one of those mornings when my body requests I do nothing at all, so I give thanks I had to get up and do several things because otherwise I wouldn't.

I give thanks for ringing a cab driver to take me and a bin bag full of stuff to the charity shop and only needing to say 'Are you busy?'...also for his reply 'No, I'm on my way to you aren't I?' Psychic taxi services are very handy!

I give thanks for getting back just in time to make some lunch before the painter came back for a second ceiling coat. He's a very chatty man and I was fall asleep on the spot tired, so I give thanks I'd just made a sandwich for my lunch and could take that elsewhere and nod over it for an hour or so before coming back for a natter...

I give thanks I'm good with words, but sometimes you say it best etc...and as describing to Jan how I wanted a necklace making was tricky I decided to thread a few beads to show her...and somehow ended up making the necklace myself! I love those rare times when I can still do the things I used to love to do often...

I give thanks for the spring greys of the sea and sky today...

Top job

I give thanks for Rachel putting back some of what the last couple of weeks has taken out...by eating with relish (literal and metaphorical) the food I had made, helping me serve it and doing ALL the washing up! By treating me by letting me talk about the things I felt I needed to, by giving me acupuncture and by the gifting of a dress from a vast hoard gifted to her from her sister who's been clearing out her trendy consultant's wardrobe... Also for her suggesting, as for various reasons choir was off both our agendas, that we meditated together a while instead. I'd forgotten how different it is when you don't do it alone, and so had she, and we both we very glad we did...

I give thanks for pottering about after she left with even MORE sorting out, and for half a glass of Crabbies to keep me company. I give thanks for having the ginger gene...

I give thanks for opening my laptop for no reason before I went for my bath and realising the Tesco order I thought I'd updated was waiting for one more click and that I had time to do it.

For a 'No listen, I am always right!' sort of delivery driver today ...not usually my favourite sort of person but I try to remember how personally improving it can be to practice not being one as well... And as it meant he insisted I ought to accept the second unordered and uncharged box of expensive water filter cartridges I'd expected just one of (at half price), well I definitely couldn't argue with that for long either...

I give thanks for getting on with some dressmaking today, including a cunning stunt with a bikini top (yes, I always have to look at that phrase twice too!) Not being the kind of radical radical cystectomy patient who lets it all hang out, I already thought the bottom half was already quite cunning as it's a fifties pin up style with a high waist, but not being endowed with a fifties pin up style top half some nipping and tucking had to be done...

I give thanks for spring greens - well this sort anyhow. Not wild about cabbage...

Still here

I give thanks for the sudden skittery wind last night, except that it woke me up just as I was falling asleep and made me get up and close the wide open windows (which was probably a good thing) and then lie staring into the night til the not so very small hours mentally wrestling with various conundrums (which probably was not!) I give thanks I've some potentially nice things to plan and prepare for, and that I have to also be prepared for the fact that not so nice events may preclude them happening...because, let's face it, all of us should always be prepared for that...

I give thanks I didn't have to get up for work today...nor anything else very urgent. I give thanks I've had the chance to try out various variously gainful occupations in my life...and can report back from the other side that the hardest job by far is being rather unwell for a rather long period of time. If you have any opportunity to avoid this folks, do...and if you absolutely must succumb for goodness sake find some nice people to look after you first!

I give thanks for the grey and murky drizzly day - perfect for fitting in as much rest as possible given resting is not something that comes easily to me as long as I'm actually conscious. I give thanks for drifting off here and there... I give thanks for the useful things I did here and there too. There are definite signs of environment improvement around...

I give thanks the leaves are opening so swiftly you could probably watch them if you sat still enough. I give thanks there are lots of trees around me here...though I do feel a little as if I'm disappearing into the green...

Working out

I give thanks for dreams so disturbing and distressing it was actually quite cheerful waking up to real life. I give thanks for working out, when I found it almost as hard to move in real life as in the nightmare, that this was due to yesterday's shifting and lifting and that gradually the stiffness and soreness eased off a bit.

I give thanks for working out if I raided the piggy bank and bribed myself with an Eastcliff toasted sandwich for lunch I would get dressed and outdoors by lunchtime...otherwise it would have been touch and go. I give thanks for the warm hazy sunshine which meant not many garments had to be struggled into... and that so many people were wearing sunglasses as my white bits would have been quite dazzling without!

I give thanks for knowing a spot to be out of the breeze and out of the way for watching the world go by at play. For the one surfer who worked out the waves breaking out over the sandbanks would not break again by the pier and went out to ride them...and for the others who, presumably having decided not to, presumably enjoyed just hanging out on their boards on the flat water instead. Not as mystifying as a large group of people in the distance who walked into the sea together to calf depth and just stood around for a bit. It did cross my mind it might be going to be a baptism but when I zoomed in with my camera they were all wearing wetsuits and stayed standing up. Maybe it was a class from the surf school having lesson 1. Getting Your Feet Wet. Gonna be a long course...

I give thanks for some successful sewing this afternoon, and also some successful snoozing. I've a wild evening of sex and drugs and rock and roll planned... well, BBC4 documentaries on the subjects anyhow... I give thanks I know how to have fun. Heck, one day I even might!

Messy beaucoup

I give thanks a trip to the tip is now so likely a day has even been agreed...and yes, I know we're supposed to call them recycling centres now and I sincerely hope they do! I give thanks to Jenny for responding to my prompting, and that her offer has prompted a big sorting out...and sorted out what to do with a lovely sunny Saturday when I didn't feel like doing anything outdoors on my own.

I give thanks for being very tired before I started so that I kept stopping for rests as this probably meant I got more done. Heavens, I even got a nap done at one point!

I give thanks for a growing heap, and knowing if it gets much bigger I'll struggle to get it down the stairs so must curb my urge to purge and stop. I give thanks that it's reached the time of day when bundling as much as possible as yet undealt with out of sight, getting clean and getting something to eat are top of the agenda...for wallowing in my bath while I write this... and that my bathroom had already had a sorting out and is a little oasis of clean unmessiness.

I give thanks for talking to a couple of people on line. Weekends when I communicate with someone other than myself are always a bonus. Well, for me anyway. ..

About thyme

I give thanks for my new glasses which I like as much as I did when I first saw them. Sometimes when you have to wait a while desire can wane, and of course with glasses you don't really see them as they really are straight away so you might find you've been desiring a figment of your own imagination all along!  The style is called Thyme though and I give thanks they are not in the least herbaceously coloured but a lovely metallic greeny blue...like the stripe in my hair was and may be again one day.

I give thanks for arranging to meet Jenny in town for a cuppa and for her thoughtfulness in offering me a lift there and back. I've been so tired the last couple of days and that was particularly appreciated. I give thanks we came across Mima and the sun coming out and could sit outside at the new cafe called The View...and also that it has one!

I give thanks I've finally got my hands on another Epo delivery and that I might start to feel a mite less fatigued before long...

I give thanks the swifts are back. Of course one apodidae does not a summer make...but I've seen three or four now and they do give one a warm seasonal feeling!

I give thanks for John and Jo anticipating my needs and thinking ahead for a way to make something easier for me. That's twice today I've been offered help without asking, something else that gives me a warm feeling too...

At the end of the day

I give thanks I have a newly painted kitchen ceiling...plus a new to me second hand ladder very similar to my old one apart from not having a broken top...and the old one taken away!

I give thanks for the friendly people I've met going about my day, and for a few minute's phone chat with a real friend I've not heard from in a while.

I give thanks for remembering to write my blog at a sleepy end to a few very hectic days. I give thanks for all the times, exhausted, I've allowed myself to do nothing despite all I feel needs to be done; for all I've managed to get done, all I have planned to do, and all I've not worked out a plan for yet but I have to believe will turn out as is meant to be. Things can't turn out any other way can they?

I give thanks for the life of someone I found out yesterday had died suddenly and unexpectedly...a healthy living young mother with little children, and the loveliest nature of just about anyone anyone who ever met her had known. It's hard to believe sometimes things are really happening the way they are meant to be.

Model behaviour

I read yesterday's horoscope last night in the bath and it said it had been a good day for talking through problems with friends and partners. My first thought was that I'd have a lot less problems if...and then I read it the other way and realised I might well have more... just different ones! I give thanks for recognising there is good and not so good in every situation and yes, increasingly I'm feeling the need for someone to say 'Hey, relax, I got this...' now and then, but you could have people apparently there for you who don't...or you could be someone who is used to having people have your back and then find yourself alone and struggling to cope...so yeah, I give thanks I'm still capable of doing all manner of things unaided or accompanied, I just need to turn up the awesome now and then...

Then I was puzzling over the logistics of getting to today's hospital appointment when it's one of the first warm sunny days of the year, I'm not feeling especially valid and just want to be outside in the fine fresh air...and I thought 'Girl, you think you got problems getting there once a week or so? This is the easy time remember...once you're on dialysis life will be one long journey to places you don't want to go.' I give thanks for knowing you should know what you've got before it's gone...

I give thanks for going back to the Jungle. It's a Lush hair product for girls with curls. On the way to meet a new surgeon I did think maybe I should try and tame my mane and feign normal but I give thanks for deciding actually in the circumstances the Medusa look would do just fine. In fact I was even asked to do a spot of modelling though that was in the interests of medical science rather than for my aesthetic charm!

I give thanks for remembering there was somewhere I could stop on the way home for that sit in the sunshine, tea and cake and taking some photographs of my own...

I see on the news a sex toy has been mistaken for an angel. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-36189614  Funnily enough the opposite has been known to happen too...

Just one step

Someone suggested recently that maybe my kidney function was deteriorating due to something I was or wasn't doing...and I was like 'Oh, I wish! Wouldn't it be great to have a vital organ failing and have the power to stop it?' And then I watched Louis Theroux's documentary about desperate alcoholics and decided to give thanks that I don't have a vital organ failing and the power to stop it, but be unable to stop the thing that I'm doing that's making it happen. I give thanks for his thoughtfulness and tenderness with people and the way these programmes give viewers the chance to see feelings of loss, lack and lovelessness (plus fear of more of the same) are so often behind so many anxious addictive behaviours, including hoarding and gorging and the constant need for cleaning or companionship... I must admit I find it hard to be grateful for my generous share of the first group sometimes but I do give thanks I mostly avoid the latter...

I give thanks a man came and put a coat of stain sealant of the stains on the kitchen ceiling today. I give thanks he only had one knee on the top of my ladder when it broke...I'd been standing on the top of it to get things off the tip of the kitchen cupboards before he arrived so I'm very grateful it didn't break then either!

I give thanks for sorting out various prescription related confusions this afternoon and a heavy bag full of more items to go to a charity shop so I could book a cab to force me to go out and pick up the ones I could. I give thanks for it being warm enough to sit on the almost deserted beach in the sunshine with a take away cup of tea...and for watching a ship come in which is a cheap thrill that never fails to enthrall me. Looks like a dodgy bit of photoshop doesn't it? Or a nicely timed photo of course...

New leaves

I give thanks for a very enjoyable dream of being at a weekend workshop about incorporating Buddhist ideals in ordinary daily life. It was held in a big old country house/conference centre near here though that, and the people I was with who I seemed to know, were just figments of my imagination. I did meet someone there I did really know however, who it wouldn't be at all unlikely to come across in such a place and who I was most delighted to see, as I would be in real life as it's been more than a couple of years now and who knows when again... I give great thanks she's most unlikely to read my blog and feel beholden to oblige by turning up!

I give thanks for a picnic on a train in the rain today. On my own? Well, yeah...obviously! A bit sad? Well yeah, likewise...der! I did wonder if anyone might be up for doing anything more interesting but decided not to cause possible offence by any implication of lack of far better things to do, or make anyone feel awkward trying to work out the best way to say no. I give thanks for realising there are still opportunities to be loving and kind even when you're mostly preferred neither seen not heard... I give thanks for lots of metta practice with Imee Ooi, and I give thanks to Jan for taking the time to chat on line a while...

Usually this time of year I'm longing to be in a car going along country lanes with lush new full leaved hedgerows...so I give thanks for the lack of full leaved hedgerows to go with the lack of the car! I give thanks instead, in between the mizzle drizzle murkiness, of seeing the cold stalled colours of the late opening trees - the limes and yellows and almost oranges amongst the greens. For bluebells and primroses, two swans flying and two pairs of deer, plus several fields of magnetically unaligned cows!

I tend not to watch adverts. In the old days I'd go to the loo or put the kettle on; now, if it's recorded TV I fast forward it, and if it's live I pause it and then fast forward... but I was grovelling on the floor with a sewing without a pattern challenge and heard one by mistake and had to rewind to watch it yesterday. Thus I give thanks for a tall man beating up the wrong car for a certain well known high street spectacles store and making me laugh out loud...

Traditionally I don't have as many blog visitors when there's holidays... so if you've been reading the last few posts in real time well then I give thanks for you!

Kind of cruel

I give thanks that April is over. I don't know if it was the cruellest month (ask me again on my deathbed OK?) but I think it'll be up there in the running. I give thanks for going to bed last night thinking May may be more kind. It's not exactly started with warm open arms so far but I'll spare you the details as this is a gratitude blog not a journal of grouching and grumbles... Be grateful for that dear reader, be very grateful indeed!

I give thanks for a cold grey drizzly day...I know it's selfish but it's easier for me when everyone's more huddled and hurrying than a sunny Sunday where they're blazoned with joy and I feel like the uninvited thirteenth fairy if I go anywhere. I give thanks for taking a look at our new quay and finding a bakery open selling rather nice looking bread. I give thanks for going to pay homage to Donald, my personal patron saint of lost at sea causes - a man who knew it's possible to be both waving and drowning at the same time.

I give thanks Avast on my mobile phone keeps telling me I'm safe. I'm hoping if I keep reading that I'll start to believe it's true, though my experience of thinking myself safe in the past has been that that's when I'm in greatest danger, so I can see there are some serious trust issues to deal with there. I give thanks for all the people who haven't a clue what this feeling is like...

I give thanks for a good book to read. Actually it's a hard book to read because it's a thick brick of a paperback so though gripping it's hard to actually grip...but I'm in the middle bit now so it's not so bad!

I give thanks for making myself a delicious sponge pudding last night with the last of my Norwegian raspberry conserve...and that I have the last of that to finish today. If anyone's off to Flam bring me some jam back from the top of the railway please!